The Guardian - 27 November 2023

••• Get out and stay out! The healing power of nature Monday 27 November 2023 From £2.14 for subscribers £2.80  G2
   Diane von Fürstenberg On that dress, survival and love  G2 Terry Venables 1943-2023 Tributes paid to former England, Spurs and Barcelona manager, who has died aged 80 News Page 11 Hopes Israel and Hamas truce can hold as third exchange takes place Jason Burke Ramallah The third exchange of hostages and prisoners between Hamas and Israel took place yesterday as the US expressed hope that the fragile truce would be extended beyond today, despite Israel insisting its campaign was far from over. Tempering hopes of a lasting halt to the off ensive , Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said on a visit to Israeli forces in Gaza: “We are continuing until the end – until victory. Nothing will stop us.” Netanyahu said yesterday that he had told the US president, Joe Biden, in a phone call that Israel would resume its campaign with full force once the truce ended, but that he would welcome extending the truce if it facilitated the release of 10 hostages every day, as agreed under the original Qatari-brokered deal. Despite tensions over the stability of the truce, Israel said 17 hostages Abigail Edan, a four-year-old US - Israeli dual national, and said he would like to “see the pause go on as long as prisoners are getting released”. Biden said his administration would “continue to remain personally engaged to see that this deal is fully implemented and work to extend the deal as well”. A huge demonstration calling for the release of the hostages took place in Tel Aviv on Saturday , with their relatives increasingly assertive as a political force. The release of Abigail, whose parents were killed in front of her while her older siblings hid in a cupboard, was an important moment in Israel. “What she endured is unthinkable,” Biden said. Liz Hirsh Naftali and Noa Naftali, Abigail’s great-aunt and cousin, said: “ There are no words to express our relief and gratitude that Abigail is safe and coming home … Today’s release proves that it’s possible. We can get all hostages back home. We have to keep pushing.” Gaza hostages Freed siblings told of their parents’ fate NHS delays blamed for 112 deaths, data reveals Emine Sinmaz E merging from captivity after 50 days of being locked in a room, teenage siblings Noam and Alma Or were faced with a new horror. After being greeted by their grandparents and checked over at a hospital, the pair were told the devastating news that their mother, Yonat, had been murdered on 7 October and their father, Dror, remained missing. The fate of their parents had been hanging over Noam, 16, and Alma, 13, while they were held captive in a room in Gaza with one other hostage – a 39-year-old woman with whom they formed a close bond. Ahal Besorai, the teenagers’ uncle, told the Guardian that it was tough for the family to deliver the news on Saturday evening, hours after the children were released as part Exclusive Michael Goodier Denis Campbell Almost 8,000 people were harmed and 112 died l ast year as a direct result of enduring long waits for an ambulance or surgery, prompting warnings that NHS care delays are “a disaster”. One man died of a cardiac arrest after an 18-minute wait for a 999 call to be answered – and was dead by the time the ambulance crew arrived. It the fi rst time NHS England has disclosed how often doctors and nurses fi le a patient safety report about someone suff er ing harm after waiting for help. They show deaths arising directly from care delays have risen more than fi ve fold over three years, from 21 in 2019 to 112 last year, as the NHS has come under huge strain. The number 5  20  5  PHOTOGRAPH: PHIL COLE/GETTY were freed by Hamas , including a Russian and three Thai s. The Israelis were all women or children . Thirtynine Palestinian s, also women and children, were freed from Israeli jails, authorities said. The day saw several symbolic moments, with the release from Gaza of a girl orphaned in last month’s bloody Hamas attack into Israel, and aid fi nally reaching the north of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israeli bombardment. Biden welcomed the release of

••• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 News Emily Dugan Women in the British military who report sexual assaults are being ostracised and punished for breaching minor rules , research shows. The forces’ “misogynistic and toxic” culture of “laddish” behaviour shapes the way it deals with and understands sexual assaults, said the study, which is published in the Royal United Services Institut e Journal . Its lead author, Dr Harriet Gray, of York University’s politics and international relations department , said nearly all of the women interviewed described being punished for breaking rules rather than supported when they reported incidents . Aletha Adu Political correspondent A Labour government would cut annual net migration to a “couple of hundred thousand a year” within its fi rst term, a shadow cabinet minister has said. The shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones , said the party aimed to get net migration back to “normal levels”, as fi gures were “extremely high”. The latest offi cial fi gures published last week showed the difference between the number of people Cameron vowed to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands” a year. Theresa May also vowed to bring net migration to under 100,000 a year . When asked what represented a reasonable level of net migration, Jones said: “The normal level is a couple of hundred thousand a year, but it depends on the needs in the economy.” A Labour spokesperson later said the party would not set an “arbitrary target” on migration. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told the Sunday Times that Labour would increase salary requirements for workers coming from overseas. She said Labour would change the rules that allow employers to pay migrant workers 20% less than the salary threshold of £26,200 for roles on the shortage occupation list . Sunak reportedly agreed to raise the minimum salary threshold as part of a leadership contest agreement with Suella Braverman. The prime minister agreed a “four-point migration plan” with the former home secretary, the Daily Telegraph reported, one of which was to raise the minimum to £40,000. Meanwhile remarks by the home secretary, James Cleverly , urging people not to “fi xate” on the government’s Rwanda deportation plan ha ve angered Tory MPs who believe Sunak is not going fast or far enough. While the chief secretary to the Treasury, Laura Trott, tried to play down suggestions of a cabinet split, a Conservative source told the Guardian: “They’re in total chaos right now. They physically can’t get a bill together. Alex [Chalk, the justice secretary,] and Victoria [Prentis, the attorney general,] have been clear on their views ; Robert [Jenrick, the immigration minister,] on his … It’s a symbol of how weak No 10 is .” Trott refused to spell out new plans to bring the numbers down, despite claiming immigration levels were too high . “This year we brought forward a £600m plan to train more people to do social care in this country,” she told Kuenssberg’s programme. “So we are taking concrete steps .” is right. It is the most profound, life-changing form of institutional betrayal.” One former RAF technician who took part in the research said that after she reported that she had been sexually assaulted by a colleague in her sleep in 2018 , her commanding offi cer’s fi rst reaction was to reprimand her for stay ing out drinking. She told the Guardian: “[The response] was: ‘ Well, why did you stay out?’ It wasn’t: ‘ How are you?’ He was just really angry with me.” She said when she reported the incident “their priority was initially to hide it”. She won an employment tribunal against the M o D last year after it found that she had been subjected to sexual harassment and that there was “no factual dispute” that an assault had taken place in 2018. The woman said she felt she was punished for seeking help and described a culture of misogyny . In addition to the assault in 2018, she said incidents included being fi lmed asleep while a colleague put his naked testicles on her face, and having her bikini bottoms pulled down by a colleague while taking a photo for a tourist on an excursion abroad. Gray said the military had “made some impressive-sounding policy changes, which are valuable,” but “unless you target the culture, then the policies about what will happen after a conviction are irrelevant when you consider how hard it is to get a conviction and what the backlash can be to reporting in the fi rst place”. She added: “ This [laddish] culture is at its roots misogynistic and toxic and if that’s allowed to remain then I don’t think you can solve this issue.” The research is the first peerreviewed, empirical study to explore experiences of sexual assault in the UK armed forces, using in-depth interviews with six servicewomen who had been subject to sexual violence by male colleagues. Victims said they felt responses to their reports were “primarily oriented around protecting the organisation … over and above their needs as survivors” and there was an “overriding concern with keeping negative stories out of the media ”. One woman said that after her report of rape, her chain of command “ordered that potential evidence be deleted from mobile phones” to avoid footage appearing on social media . Another interviewee told researchers the camp turned into a “hostile environment” after she reported her assault . She said: “If you spoke out, you [were] ostracised .” An MoD spokesperson said: “ Sexual off ences and unacceptable sexual behaviour have no place in the armed forces and we are committed to stamping them out. All allegations are taken extremely seriously and crimes are investigated by the service police. “We have set up an independent defence serious crime unit, created a victim witness care unit and strengthened our ability to discharge from service anyone who has committed an off ence or engages in unacceptable sexual behaviour.” Military hostile to women who report assault, study fi nds Labour ‘will cut migration to 200,000 a year in fi rst term’ Offi cer cadets march at Sandhurst. The UK military has been accused of ostracising servicewomen who report sexual violence or punishing them for petty rule breaches PHOTOGRAPH: TIM GRAHAM/ALAMY G2 Centre pullout Features and arts Contact For missing sections call 0800 839 100. For individual departments, call the Guardian switchboard: 020 3353 2000. For the Readers’ editor (corrections &  clarifi cations on specifi c editorial content), call 020 3353 4736 between 10am and 1pm UK time Monday to Friday excluding public holidays, or email [email protected]. Letters for publication should be sent to guardian. [email protected] or the address on the letters page. Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. 020-3353 2000. Fax 020-7837 2114. In Manchester: Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Telephone Sales: 020-7611 9000. The Guardian lists links to third-party websites, but does not endorse them or guarantee their authenticity or accuracy. Back issues from Historic Newspapers: historic-newspapers.co.uk/old-newspapers/guardian. Published by Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, and at Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Printed at Reach Watford Limited, St Albans Road, Watford, Herts WD24 7RG; Reach Oldham Limited, Hollinwood Avenue, Chadderton, Oldham OL9 8EP; Reach Saltire Ltd, 110 Fifty Pitches Place, Glasgow G51 4EA; and by Irish Times Print Facility, 4080 Kingswood Road, Citywest Business Campus, Dublin 24. No. 55,138, Monday 27 November 2023. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office ISSN 0261-3077. Cartoon Journal, page 4 Weather Page 30 Cryptic crossword Back of Journal Quick crossword Back of G2 Journal Outside G2 Opinions and ideas Inside 27/11/23 Four sections every day News and Sport Save up to 30% with a subscription to the Guardian and the Observer Visit theguardian. com/paper-subs  Our culture is who we are – so Labour needs a plan to save it Charlotte Higgins Page 1 Politics Reform UK leader denies party has offered Tory MPs money to defect Page 13 A new start after 60 I lost my sight, fell in a canal – and then I became a writer Page 2 Th e Guardian recently revealed that 60 senior women in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had written to the permanent secretary last month to detail a “hostile” and “toxic” culture at the department and alleged sexual assault, harassment and abuse by male colleagues. Emma Norton, the director of the Centre for Military Justice , said: “Our research demonstrates what any woman who has been through this … knows all too well – after reporting rape, she faces humiliation, disbelief, blame, shame and ostracisation. “This harm is being caused by the very institution to which she had devoted her career and her life, an institution that too often appears more concerned with protecting its own reputation than doing what coming to live in the UK and those leaving had peaked at 745,000, which is three times higher than the levels seen before Brexit. The surge is largely down to an increase in people coming to Britain to work in the health and social care sector. The Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto, which led them to a huge election win, vowed to ensure “overall numbers will come down” and “we will ensure that the British people are always in control”. But Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to come up with an “immediate and massive” plan to cut net migration levels. When asked on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg if Labour could bring numbers down within their fi rst term , Jones said: “ We probably would hope to do that, yes, but we’ve talked about a decade of national renewal.” He added that it would take time “to fi x the deep structural problems” left by successive Tory governments. Jones also noted the Conservatives have “set targets … and have failed every single year”. In 2010, David NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2017 was 64.6% ‘This culture is at its roots misogynistic and toxic’ Dr Harriet Gray Lead author of the study

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian ••• News 3 Ella Creamer The Irish author Paul Lynch has won the 2023 Booker prize for his fi fth novel, Prophet Song , set in an imagined Ireland that is descending into tyranny. It was described as a “soulshattering and true” novel that “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment” by the Canadian novelist and judging chair, Esi Edugyan . Edugyan, who has twice been shortlisted for the Booker prize , said the decision to award Lynch the £50,000 prize “wasn’t unanimous” and was settled on by discussion and rounds of voting that lasted “about six hours” on Saturday. Prophet Song takes place in an alternative Dublin. Members of the newly formed secret police, established by a government turning towards totalitarianism, turn up on the doorstep of Eilish, a microbiologist, asking for her husband, a senior offi cial in the Teachers’ Union of Ireland. Soon, he disappears – along with hundreds of other civilians – and Eilish is left to look after their four children and her elderly father, fi ghting to hold the family together amid civil war. Lynch told the ceremony last night that it was an “immense pleasure” to take the Booker back to Ireland, adding: “This was not an easy book to write. The rational part of me believed I was dooming my career by writing this novel. Though I had to write the book anyway. We do not have a choice in such matters.” He thanked “all the children of this world who need our protection, yet have lived, and continue to live, through the terrors depicted in this book”. “Thank you for opening our eyes to innocence,” Lynch said. “So that we may know the world again as though for the fi rst time.” His win comes days after violent protests broke out across central Dublin following a stabbing attack outside a primary school that left three children and an adult injured. Police said the disorder had been caused by a “complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology”. Asked whether recent events had influenced the judges’ decision, Edugyan said that “at some point in the discussions, maybe for a few minutes, this was introduced, this was discussed”. However, she said that timeliness “was not the reason that Prophet Song won the prize”. This is the second year in a row that a novel about political confl ict has won the prize. In 2022, Shehan Karunatilaka won with The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida , set during the Sri Lankan civil war. “Lynch’s dystopian Ireland refl ects the reality of war-torn countries, where refugees take to the sea to escape persecution on land,” wrote Aimée Walsh in an Observer review . “Prophet Song echoes the violence in Palestine, Ukraine and Syria, and the experience of all those who fl ee from war-torn countries.” Melissa Harrison, in a Guardian review, called the novel “as nightmarish a story as you’ll come across: powerful, claustrophobic and horribly real” . Lynch was born in 1977 in Limerick, grew up in County Donegal and now lives in Dublin. He is the fi fth Irish author to win the Booker prize, following in the footsteps of Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright. The Northern Irish writer Anna Burns won in 2018. The keynote speech at the prize ceremony in London was given by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff e , who was released from prison in Iran last year. She discussed the ways in which books had helped her when she was in solitary confi nement. “When the guard opened the door and handed over the books to me, I felt liberated; I could read books, they could take me to another world, and that could transform my life,” she said. The other titles shortlisted were The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, This Other Eden by Paul Harding, If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoff ery, and Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein . Paul Lynch’s tale of Dublin’s descent into dystopia wins 2023 Booker prize Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song imagines Ireland slipping into totalitarianism. Above: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff e spoke at the prize ceremony MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID PARRY/ SHUTTERSTOCK With Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, the judges have chosen perhaps the most urgent book on the shortlist – a novel explicitly plugged into global strife and political tectonic forces. But it’s also the very intimate, elemental story of one woman’s love for her family, and her desperate attempts to hold on to the immediate world around her in the face of rising chaos. Lynch imagines an Ireland under fascist control. Eilish Stack is a Dublin scientist and mother of four, busy with work, family and her elderly father, averting her eyes from worrying news reports. Then grim reality comes knocking at her door: the secret police arrive to interrogate her husband, Larry, about his work as a trade unionist. Along with many others, he is disappeared into the maw of the state. Their teenage children want to take to the streets but Eilish wants them hidden and safe. If Prophet Song is a dystopia, then, like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s one whose events are already happening around the world . Families like Eilish’s are suff ering in Ukraine, Syria, Palestine and elsewhere, refugees fl eeing political violence, women’s rights , and the far right on the rise in Europe. The recent rioting in Dublin gives the novel an uncomfortable extra timeliness. Lynch has described his book as “an attempt at radical empathy” – using fi ction to break through the it-couldn’t-happen-here complacency of a west saturated in global news. It is written in the present tense, in claustrophobic slabs of prose, with long, immersive sentences increasing the feeling of inevitability . There’s an incantatory power to Lynch’s prose that’s reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, but harnessed to a vision that is shockingly everyday, even as it summons the end times. This is a novel written to jolt the reader awake to truths we mostly cannot bear to admit: “All your life you’ve been asleep, all of us sleeping and now the great waking begins.” Justine Jordan ‘Radical empathy’ A chillingly contemporary story Beyond all raisin: Christmas cake is not obligatory, says Nigella Jessica Murray It may be one of the longest-standing festive traditions, but Nigella Lawson has urged people to ditch Christmas cake this year if their family does not love it, and opt for something diff erent. The celebrity chef said there was no point in having a dried fruit cake “gathering dust” on the kitchen counter, and families should choose a festive dessert that would go down better with visiting guests over the winter break. Lawson said she would be making one of her classic crowd-pleasing chocolate cakes this Christmas, in what has become a festive tradition in her household. “Much as I love a slice of dense, damp Christmas cake, especially when eaten with a slice of strong, sharp cheese, I am surrounded by those who abominate dried fruit in all its seasonal manifestations,” she said in the Sunday Times . “If no one in your family likes dried fruit, there’s no point having a Christmas cake gathering dust or just being eaten on suff erance. If chocolate cake appeals more, go for it.” Signs suggest the Christmas cake, which dates back to the 16th century, is waning in popularity . A consumer survey by the Delicious Dessert Company in 2022 found under-35s considered fruit cake the “most boring” type of cake . “It was made clear to me long ago that, in the interest of harmony in the home, I needed to introduce a new tradition that made us all happy, and this [chocolate] cake is it,” Lawson said. She has n ot ditched all Christmas dessert traditions though. She will still be making a small Christmas pudding and a trifl e. Nigella Lawson ‘I am surrounded by those who abominate dried fruit in all its seasonal manifestations’ wson

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 4 ▲ Emily Hand reunited with her father PHOTOGRAPH: ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES/REUTERS ‘Overjoyed’: nine-year-old hostage Emily Hand returns to family in Israel Lisa O’Carroll The family and friends of Emily Hand have spoken of their joy after Hamas released the nine-year-old IsraeliIrish girl from captivity in Gaza late on Saturday. “Emily has come back to us,” her father, Thomas Hand, said after an emotional reunion at a hospital in Israel. In a statement, Emily’s family said: “We can’t fi nd the words to describe our emotions after 50 challenging and complicated days.” Later yesterday, her father gave an update on her recovery: “She has lost a lot of weight, from her face and body, but generally doing better than we expected. “We’d like to thank everyone that has helped and supported us throughout this whole 50 days. ” Emily was initially feared dead after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7  October, but was later counted among the hostages. She was one of a group of 13 Israelis and four Thai nationals who were released late on Saturday night as part of a deal that saw Israel free 39 Palestinian prisoners. In the West Bank, cheering crowds greeted Palestinian prisoners as they walked free . Another group of hostages was handed over yesterday , while 39 Palestinian prisoners were released later as part of the exchange. Emily was at a sleepover in a friend’s house in the Be’eri kibbutz when she was abducted. Her friend Hila, 13, was also released on Saturday but Hila’s mother, Raya Rotem, 54, is still being held captive. “We are overjoyed to embrace Emily again, but at the same time, we remember Raya Rotem and all the hundreds of hostages yet to return,” Emily’s family added. Talia, a 10-year-old friend of News Israel-Hamas war worse than I sis that murdered her stepmother.” Israel said it was summoning Ireland’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in Jerusalem for a “reprimand”. Also among the hostages freed late on Saturday was 21-year-old Maya Regev, kidnapped by Hamas fi ghters in their deadly raid on the Supernova music festival along with her 18-yearold brother, Itay. She was hit by gunfi re while on the phone with their father, and was seen crossing the border in crutches, and is expected to undergo a series of surgical operations, the Times of Israel reported. Her mother, Mirit Regev, said : “I am so excited and happy that Maya is on her way to us now. Nonetheless, my heart is split because my son Itay is still in Hamas captivity in Gaza .” For residents of the Be’eri kibbutz, the Hands’ home, one of the communities worst hit by last month’s attack Emily, said: “You don’t know, you can’t imagine they will come. You just can’t imagine it, what they will do, if they will talk about it . We have a lot of questions, everyone wants to ask them, what happened there, what they did to them, if they ate and drank.” The Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, spoke of the end of a “cruel torture” for Emily’s family. “An innocent girl who was lost has now been found and returned, and our country breathes a massive sigh of relief,” he said. Varadkar’s comments drew an angry response from Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, who wrote on social media: “Mr Prime Minister. It seems you have lost your moral compass and need a reality check! Emily Hand was not ‘lost’, she was kidnapped by a terror organisation Clockwise from far left: freed Israeli hostages Yahel Shoham, three, her mother , Adi Shoham , Sharon Avigdori and Shoshan Haran ▲ Hila RotemShoshani with a family member after her release. Above left, a group of freed hostages from Thailand PHOTOGRAPHS: AFP/REUTERS ‘An innocent girl who was lost has now been found and returned’ Leo Varadkar Irish taoiseach

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian ••• 5 by Hamas, the release of some of the hostages was met with joy tinged with sadness. Among the others freed were six members of an extended family including a three-year-old girl. Adi Shoham, 38, was freed with her son Naveh, eight, and her daughter Yahel, three. All three hold dual German nationality through Adi ’s father, Avshalom Haran, who was killed in the attack. Her husband, Tal Shoham, 38, remains in captivity. Adi’s aunt Sharon Avigdori and her daughter Noam, 12, were also freed. They were all at Be’eri kibbutz to visit Adi’s mother, Shoshan Haran, who was also released on Saturday. Adi’s cousin Inbal Tzach said: “This is the saddest joy and the happiest sadness, but our family is home . This is an emotional evening for the families who received their loved ones tonight. We will continue the struggle until everyone comes home.” The mother of a Thai hostage freed from Gaza on Saturday described how she felt as she learned her son was among the four most recent Thai nationals confi rmed as released. “My granddaughter called me at 5am saying my son was among the hostages released and I didn’t really believe it,” Thongkoon Onkaew told Reuters by phone on Sunday. “Then she sent me the photo and I was like: ‘That’s my son! My son!’” Three Israeli hostages who were released from Hamas captivity on Friday were discharged from hospital yesterday. A cousin of Keren Munder, who was released on Friday along with her son Ohad and her mother, Ruth, told Israel’s Channel 12 that the three had been held together throughout their captivity. Merav Mor Raviv said she had been told that her family members’ captors were armed with their faces visible, and that they repeatedly made a beheading gesture with their hands. Keren Munder’s father was kidnapped at the same time but not held alongside the others. It is thought he is still in captivity. Among the latest group of Palestinians released was 38-year-old Israa Jaabis , sentenced to 11 years in jail for detonating a gas cylinder at a checkpoint in 2015. Jaabis, wearing a wreath of yellow fl owers, hugged relatives in her home on her return. “Thank God. My pain is visible, no need to speak about it,” she said, her face partially disfi gured by burns. “I also have pain on an emotional level and I am missing my relatives. But this is the tax a prisoner pays.” Young prisoners embraced relatives and were carried on their shoulders after walking free from the Ofer prison in the West Bank into a crowd waving the green fl ags of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz adDin al-Qassam brigades. One released prisoner, Wael Bilal Mashy, said: “May God protect the resistance in Gaza, mercy for our martyrs, and healing for the wounded. Long live the resistance and long live all those who supported it .” Additional reporting AFP Maya Regev , 21, seen with a Hamas fi ghter and a Red Cross medic in an image released by the group PHOTOGRAPH: AFP/GETTY of a ceasefi re deal between Israel and Hamas. “Unfortunately, they were not aware that my sister, their mum, was murdered,” he said. “Suddenly they come to see their loved ones for the fi rst time in 50 days and the fi rst piece of news that they are confronted with is that their mum is no longer alive. I think it was very traumatic, there were a lot of tears, a lot of pain.” Besorai, a British-Israeli lawyer who lives in the Philippines, had a lengthy conversation with the pair on Saturday after they were reunited with their older brother, Yali, 18, who had missed the attack as he was serving with the Israeli army, and their paternal grandparents. For the fi rst time, the wider family learned how the two siblings became separated from their parents as Hamas stormed the Be’eri kibbutz on 7 October. Family left to tell released teenagers of mother’s death Continued from page 1 ▲ A video still shows Israeli siblings Noam and Alma Or, who are 16 and 13, yesterday after their release The children said they had been sheltering in a safe room with their parents when gunmen set their house on fi re. “When Hamas terrorists burned their house in order to force them out of the safe room, the kids jumped from the window and tried to hide in a diff erent place but the terrorists found them and took them to Gaza in a stolen car from the kibbutz. “They put Noam in the trunk [boot] and my niece in the front with eight other Hamas terrorists,” Besorai said. Yonat, 50, was shot as she tried to hide, while Dror, 50, is believed to have been abducted. In Gaza, the children were confi ned to a single room in a house with a woman. “It wasn’t easy for them there as well. It wasn’t just straightforward, sit in the room and eat,” Besorai said. He did not want to elaborate on the teenagers’ plight, so as to not upset the families of the remaining 199 hostages, who were abducted on what some in Israel now refer to as “Black Saturday”. Besorai said: “ They were held, the two of them together, with another lady. I know who she is and they left her behind, they did not release her, so she’s now on her own in that godforsaken place. “I think what they did is, they smuggled the children to the toilets so she wouldn’t know that they’re going to be released and then taped the children’s eyes and took them in their car to wherever in order to hand them over to the Red Cross.” Besorai, who grew up in the kibbutz before moving to the UK to study law at Cambridge University , believed that the children had formed a close bond with the woman. “I asked them how did you manage to survive and they said that they supported each other in this triad, if you like. So when someone was down, the other would encourage them and lend moral support,” he said. The children were not kept in a tunnel, Besorai said, but added: “There were other things that happened that made the experience diffi cult, very diffi cult.” He said Hamas appeared to get “sadistic enjoyment” out of torturing the families by delaying the release of the second tranche of hostages on Saturday. It came after Hamas accused Israel of failing to honour the aid agreement that had been brokered. Besorai said he was reduced to tears after fi nally seeing the faces of his niece and nephew on a Zoom call on Saturday night. “They are really happy to be back,” he said. “The fi rst image of Alma on the screen was her bright, glittery eyes and big smile. Obviously she has lost weight and looks much, much slimmer, but her beautiful smile and glittering eyes warms your heart so I started to cry.” He added: “Noam was very talkative and wanting to share. He shared some personal stuff that he was going through – maybe talking about it for the fi rst time with someone who loves him and cares for him will help him to heal.” Hope of truce extension amid third exchange Continued from page 1 Released prisoners Israa Jaabis and top, Maysoon al-Jabali, are welcomed. Above ex-prisoners join celebrations PHOTOGRAPH: OREN ZIV/AFP ▲ Abigail Edan, four, was released yesterday. She has lost both parents A nother hostage, 84-year-old Elma Avraham, was seriously ill on arrival in Israel and taken to hospital . Hamas is thought to be split over extending the ceasefi re, with political leaders based in Qatar favouring an extension while those in Gaza feel that with almost 200 hostages still in their hands, they are in a strong position and should resist concessions. In a statement yesterday the group said it was seeking to extend the truce should serious eff orts be made to increase the number of Palestinian detainees released from Israel. Qatar has said Hamas needs to fi nd dozens of hostages in order to extend the truce. The country’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani , said that it was believed at least 40 women and children were being detained in Gaza but were not being held by Hamas. “If they get additional women and children, there will be an extension,” he told the Financial Times. “We don’t yet have any clear information how many they can fi nd because …  one of the purposes [of the pause] is they will have time to search for the rest of the missing people.” The ceasefi re has brought the fi rst signifi cant pause in seven weeks of war marked by the deadliest IsraeliPalestinian violence in decades and vast destruction in Gaza . The confl ict was triggered when Hamas broke through the fence around Gaza on 7 October and attacked communities in Israel, killing more than 1,200 – mostly civilians in their homes or at a music festival. More than 240 people were abducted, including infants, elderly disabled people and soldiers . More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli off ensive launched after the Hamas attack , roughly two-thirds of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza . More than a million people have been forced from their homes. Under intense international pressure, Israel has agreed to release at least 150 Palestinian prisoners and allow up to 300 trucks of aid into the territory after weeks of a blockade of fuel, food and medicine that has caused an acute humanitarian crisis. Calls from hostages’ families to prioritise their release have sharpened the dilemma facing Israel’s leaders as they seek to reconcile the military off ensive with the goal of freeing all the captives. Many offi cials argue that Hamas makes concessions only when faced with overwhelming force . Sources close to the negotiations said a major problem was the almost total absence of trust between Israel and Hamas. Israel has accused Hamas of failing to allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit hostages in Gaza, while a coalition of groups representing hostages’ relatives criticised the extremist Islamist organisation for releasing children without their parents. Both were said to be breaches of the deal. Yesterday, Osama Hamdan , a Hamas spokesperson, accused Israel of allowing only 65 of 340 aid trucks to reach northern Gaza since Friday, or “less than half of what Israel agreed on”. Israel said it was Hamas that had stopped aid moving north. The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, also said Israel had failed to respect terms for the release of Palestinian prisoners that factored in their time in detention. The war in Gaza has been accompanied by an increase in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank , where the Israeli army has arrested hundreds of Palestinians . In Ramallah, Palestinian families waited for news of relatives detained by Israel, hoping the list of 300 candidates for release under the deal will be extended. Usama Shahadeh, whose 17-yearold daughter, Asir, was arrested two weeks ago , said : “ She doesn’t know Hamas from hummus … We just want to see her home .”

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 6 National xSubjectxxxx News Israel-Hamas war ‘Soldiers shot at my feet’ Families tell of traumatic walk south to ‘safe zones’ Aseel Mousa Gaza Dogs biting at a human corpse. An exhausted, heavily pregnant woman carrying a toddler on her back. A seemingly lifeless body pushed on a cart. The sights of the Salah al-Din road, the main highway that runs like a spine through Gaza, remain with those who have walked it. “What we experienced cannot be seen in horror movies,” said Nahla, from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. Under siege, hungry, thirsty and encircled by Israeli troops, her family had been determined to stay in their homes. But one night the Israeli bombing campaign left their house in ruins. “Miraculously, we escaped death and sought refuge in our neighbours’ house,” she said. At 6am the next morning, Nahla and her four children began the slow walk south. Israel’s war has split the territory of 2.3 million people in two, with the military telling Palestinians to move below the Gaza river to what it calls “safe zones”. Still, it has continued to bomb the entire strip, wiping out families it says are unfortunate ca sual ties in its targeting of militants. To get people to move, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have often advertised what they call “humanitarian corridors” along the Salah al-Din road for four hours a day, which they say is to help civilians to fl ee. UN rights experts warn, however, that demands for civilians to leave while under bombardment, and with no guarantee of safe return, amount to a forcible population transfer, which is a crime against humanity. Speaking from the al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip , Nahla described walking past Israeli soldiers, holding up rags of white clothing in the hope they would not be shot. “We were thousands of people, with children crying, women screaming, and many disabled people who could not walk,” she said. One of her daughters, Yara, 16, said soldiers were pointing their guns straight at them. The soldiers told people to raise their hands and hold up their identity documents, Gaza River Erez crossing Gaza Strip Israel Mediterranean Sea al-Shifa hospital Indonesian hospital Jabaliya Gaza City Beit Hanoun Jabaliya refugee camp Salah al-Din road Beit Lahia Reported Israeli ground operations and claimed furthest Israeli advance Refugee camps Bureij camp Maghazi camp Source: Institute for the Study of War with AEI’s Critical Threats Project. 25 November Saja's journey from northern Gaza to the south 2 miles 2 km 1 2 3 4 5 ▼ Palestinian families fl eeing northern Gaza along the Salah al-Din road yesterday PHOTOGRAPH: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/GETTY

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian ••• 7 which would be inspected at a checkpoint. At one point, Yara’s ID card fell out of her hand. “I bent down to pick it up, and the Israeli soldiers started shooting at my feet. They told me that I was prohibited from picking up anything on the ground.” Now living in an abandoned school, the small family are getting cold as winter sets in. They had slept in a tent in the schoolyard, but moved into the corridor once the rain started. “There is no room for us in the classroom,” said Nahla. “My two daughters, Yara and Asmaa, are trembling with fear to this day. They refuse to sleep except next to me.” In the same building, 15-year-old Saja sits beside her injured mother on a worn-out mattress. She headed south after being bombed out twice in northern Gaza. The family of six had lived in the Jabalia refugee camp for the past two decades. “We are a peaceloving family that cherishes life,” said Saja. The IDF called her father one day on his phone, telling him their home would be a target. They then moved to her grandfather’s place, but a strike on a neighbour left shrapnel in her mother’s leg. They moved to the Indonesian hospital but it too came under heavy bombardment. “Entire neighbourhoods in Jabalia camp were obliterated,” said Saja. “When we decided to evacuate we joined hundreds of Palestinians … Upon reaching Salah al-Din street, we encountered tanks and occupation soldiers who shouted at us. Some even laughed. We were not allowed to deviate from the prescribed path … As we walked past a soldier, we moved slowly due to my mother and sister’s critical condition. The soldier shouted at us : ‘Run quickly.’” Eventually, they crossed the river and paid for a donkey cart to take them to Bureij camp . “Our initial attempt to seek shelter at the [UN] school there was met with refusal.” They boarded another cart and travelled to Maghazi camp. “Upon our arrival, a compassionate displaced woman took pity on our situation and provided a mattress for my injured mother,” said Saja. Saja’s mother, Maha, her leg wrapped with metal poking out of it, spoke in a weak voice: “Here, there are no necessities for life – no food, no treatment, no healthcare, nothing humane,” she said. Aya Hammad, 23, was at home in the Sabra area of Gaza City when her father and two sisters received calls from the IDF, instructing them to evacuate. “We didn’t have the luxury of contemplating the supplies we might need,” she said. “We carried only our identity documents and a small bag containing a single piece of clothing to mitigate the harshness of the impending winter cold.” Her family found shelter in the abandoned house of a friend in the southern city of Khan Younis . “The temporary refuge resembles a ghost town ,” she said. “There is no electricity, no internet, no water and no food. Our neighbours provide us with a small amount of water to prevent us dying of thirst.” Vikram Dodd Tom Ambrose Britain’s chief rabbi said yesterday that Jewish communities would not be intimidated by an increase in antisemitism , as tens of thousands marched in London in protest against a rising tide of hate triggered by the crisis in the Middle East. The protest organisers had pleaded for t he far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, to stay away, but he failed to, leading to his arrest by police after he refused to leave the area. The Met confi rmed that pepper spray was used to detain the 40-yearold activist . Organisers said up to 60,000 people had attended the march , making it the biggest stand against anti semitism since 1936, when protest ers confronted Oswald Mos ley’s black- shirts at Cable Street in east London. At the march the chief rabbi vowed that British Jews “will not be intimidated” by antisemitism. Sir Ephraim Mirvis said: “We call for a strengthening of community cohesion and we will for ever be proud to champion the fi nest of British values. “So with regard to the poisonous spread of antisemitism, what should the response of the British people be? Number one, call it out when you see it. Number two, call it by what it really is – Jew hatred. Number three, be vigilant and report every incident. Number four, we must arrest every single perpetrator and bring every single one of them to justice. “Number fi ve, we must teach our children that the superheroes of our society are those who pursue peace and loving kindness, and not those who glorify violence and murder, and we must teach people that they must draw their conclusions from historical facts and not from what they see and hear on social media.” Some in the crowd, which included the former prime minister Boris Johnson , told of their fears. Jeremy Dein, 63 , a lawyer from north London, said: “I am … overwhelmed by the antisemitism that has clearly been bubbling under the surface, which a lot of people are using under the mask of pro-Palestine and pro-Gaza. I feel the Jewish community has to show that it is strong and when we said never again, we meant never again. ” He said he had felt colleagues shunning him: “I have certainly experienced a number of my colleagues who used to be warm and friendly towards me and they blank me now. ” Alice Davis, 28, said: “ I’ve got friends that don’t want to come into central London, they don’t feel comfortable, because they look Jewish.” Another protest er, Mark Ambrose, said: “There’s only 250,000 Jewish men, women and children in the whole of the UK. I think we are a very peaceful people … we are just here to show our support .” The Met said of Yaxley-Lennon : “He had refused to comply with a direction to disperse under section 35 of the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act. We have been in frequent contact with the organisers of the march in recent days. They have been clear about their concerns that the man’s attendance, and that of those who were likely to accompany him, would cause fear for other participants … He was … warned on more than one occasion that his continued presence was likely to cause harassment, alarm and distress to others. ” The far-right leader claimed he was attending the protest as a journalist. The Met said that a total of two people were arrested at the march. Protest over antisemitism Chief rabbi tells Britons to stand up for kindness ▲ Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was held after refusing to leave the rally area Analysis Dan Sabbagh IDF’s messaging suggests the pause in fi ghting is unlikely to last much beyond tomorrow Gaza’s truce is unlikely to last signifi cantly beyond tomorrow, with Israel’s military stepping up pressure yesterday to restart the air and ground off ensive in a campaign that some experts predict could run into next year. The four -day halt in fi ghting – described by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as “an operational pause” – is scheduled to end at 7am tomorrow if the agreed transfer of 50 hostages held by Hamas and others in Gaza goes to plan. There is an expectation in many quarters that the pause will be extended for a few days, and the agreement allows for an extra day’s truce for every 10 hostages Hamas is willing to release. It is estimated there are another 40 children and women who are not soldiers not covered by the initial agreement, giving scope for more phased releases . N ot all the hostages are under the direct control of Hamas, however, instead held by Palestinian Jihad or other smaller Gazan armed groups. But while that may lead to several days of extensions, the IDF has been unambiguously signalling its desire to restart the military campaign. Yesterday morning, Herzi Halevi , the head of the IDF, described meeting soliders after long hours of combat . “I saw refl ected in your eyes the magnitude of the moment, the fi ghting spirit and determination to achieve all the objectives of the war,” he said. “I heard you tell me: ‘We want to fi ght until we return the hostages.’ And so we are doing just that!” Any restart of the war will have disastrous consequences for Gaza’s civilians, already suff ering an extreme humanitarian crisis. They represent the overwhelming majority of the 13,000 killed in the seven -week long war, a fi gure roughly comparable to the 12,000 recorded by Iraq Body Count as having been killed in Iraq in 2003, the year of the US-led invasion. “I can’t see the truce lasting more than a week,” said Miri Eisin , a former Israeli military intelligence specialist who runs the International Institute for Counter Terrorism. “The IDF wants to dismantle Hamas’s terror capability and military capability and the only way to do that is through a systematic and careful ground operation .” Israel’s military estimates it has killed between 1,000 and 2,000 Hamas fi ghters out of a n estimated 30,000 , but Hamas remains a coherent fi ghting and political operation, able to negotiate over hostages . As of Friday, when the truce began, the IDF had surrounded the northern part of the strip, though pockets of resistance remained, after an intense bombing campaign. Footage of the Jabaliya area yesterday morning revealed an urban wasteland , while satellite analysis suggests that 40%-50% of buildings in northern Gaza have been hit. The IDF’s next focus is the south, to where Palestinian civilians were supposed to fl ee, and in particular Khan Younis, the city where Israel believes Hamas’s headquarters and leader, Yahya Sinwar , are located. Last week, Israel called for civilians, many already displaced once, to leave the city . Ultimately, any decision to restart the war lies with Israel’s war cabinet led by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who pledged to rightwing coalition partners last week that the war would resume once the 50 hostages were released . “I want to be clear – the war is continuing,” he said . From this perspective, the central issue is Israel’s discussions with the US about how it would conduct the attack on Khan Younis it believes is necessary. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said yesterday that the White House was having “a constructive conversation” with Israel about ensuring that “any military action only takes place after civilians have been accounted for”. Eisen argued that to meet the goal of eliminating Hamas, Israel would have to occupy Khan Younis. “It will not take 10 days or two weeks. It could be another month or two, so it won’t be as the British might have said, be over by Christmas, unless you reach a tipping point where Hamas puts down its arms and gives up .” For now, all the signs point to the fact that Israel believes a military victory is possible. Israel estimates it has killed up to 2,000 Hamas fi ghters – but Hamas remains a coherent fi ghting and political operation ▼Up to 60,000 people attended the march against antisemitism in central London yesterday PHOTOGRAPH:ANTONIO OLMOS/THE GUARDIAN ▲ Former PM Boris Johnson was seen at the protest march yesterday

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 8 OFFER ENDS TODAY • JOIN NOW Then, £6.99/m. Monthly subscription required. Auto-renews unless cancelled. New and former subscribers only. Cannot be combined with any other off er, free trial, or promotion. 18+. T&Cs apply. Off er ends 27/11/23. BLACK FRIDAY OFFER £3.49 FOR 3 MONTHS PER MONTH News Israel-Hamas war Simona Foltyn Baghdad A salvo of machinegun fi re, customary during funerals, illuminated the night sky as dozens of men converged in a dimly lit, unpaved alley on the edges of the sprawling slums of Sadr city to pay their respects. A giant picture of Ali Hassan al-Daraaji had been erected outside the family home in north-east Baghdad to announce his “martyrdom” in last week’s US airstrikes on Iraqi armed groups. The strikes left nine fi ghters dead, including Daraaji, the fi rst Iraqi fatalities linked to the IsraelHamas war. Even as a tenuous truce takes hold in Gaza, the pace of clashes in Iraq has picked up, highlighting the risk of spillover in a country long mired in confl ict. ▼ A picture of Ali Hassan al-Daraaji, who was killed in US airstrikes last week, outside his home in Baghdad PHOTOGRAPH: SIMONA FOLTYN ‘People don’t want the Americans’ Tensions in Iraq fuelled by Gaza On Tuesday and Wednesday, the US targeted fi ghters it believed were responsible for dozens of attacks carried out on American troops in Iraq and Syria. The operations have been claimed under the banner of the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq in response to “the crimes committed by the enemy against our people in Gaza”, according to statements released on its Telegram channel. The Pentagon said it had acted in defence of its troops, who returned to Iraq in 2014 to help the Iraqi government fi ght Islamic State (IS). But the Daraaji family, whose history is steeped in fi ghting the 2003- 11 US occupation of Iraq, sees the latest events as a continuation of a long history of unjust American policies in the Middle East, and as a sign that two decades after its invasion, the US is still treading on Iraqi sovereignty. Reticent and defi ant, many of the because of the diplomatic cover and military aid it provides to Israel. “America is responsible for the killing of children in Gaza,” Dholfaqar said. “All Iraqis stand with Gaza, not just the resistance factions, not just the PMF. Every time there is a war, we unite.” Iraq has a long history of supporting the Palestinian struggle for statehood, an issue that is deeply i ngrained in Arab identity for Sunnis and Shias. When Israel launched its ground off ensive on 26 October, prayers in support of Gaza rang out from minarets across the Iraqi capital. Sunni mosques united to organise joint prayers , with some Sunnis even expressing cautious support for the attacks on Americans by otherwise unpopular Shia groups. “If they hit the Americans, may God help them. We pray for their good luck,” said Munir Al Obaidi, the vice-president of the Council of Scholars, a religious organisation that includes more than 1,000 Sunni clerics in Iraq. A Kataib Hezbollah statement on Saturday announced a reduction in the pace of attacks until the end of the Gaza truce, but vowed to continue until Iraq was “liberated” from the “occupation forces”, no matter the sacrifi ce. “For every martyr, 1,000 more will take his place,” said Dholfaqar al-Daraaji. They are the ones responsible for the destruction of Iraq,” Dholfaqar said. Ali, aged 32 , was the seventh family member killed in the intermittent spasms of violence that have gripped Iraq since 2003. Ali’s mother, two siblings and an uncle died in the sectarian bloodletting that followed the invasion, while two young cousins lost their lives when a mortar hit the family home in 2008. Images of dead Palestinian children being pulled from under the rubble have brought those painful memories back to the surface and revived anger at the US, seen as a party to the confl ict men at the funeral were members of Kataib Hezbollah, the secretive group believed responsible for most of the latest attacks. Some had joined when it fi rst formed early in the occupation . Others, like Ali and his uncle, Dholfaqar al-Daraaji, joined in 2014, when Kataib Hezbollah ostensibly merged into the state security apparatus under the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella of Shia paramilitaries that received Iranian support to fi ght IS . Anti-American sentiment runs deep in this community, which has reeled from loss after loss. “The people don’t want the Americans.

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • 9 Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor Western diplomats have turned to the Palestinian Authority to fi ll the political vacuum likely to be created by the planned destruction of Hamas in Gaza, but know their chosen rescue vehicle is unpopular, deemed corrupt, and badly in need of a new generation of leaders . The west’s plac ing of the neglected PA at the heart of postconfl ict governance in Gaza has also been rejected by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, causing consternation in President Biden’s administration. Indeed, Israel is so hostile to the authority that it banned its foreign minister from travelling this month to Bahrain to speak at a conference attended by US and Arab leaders on its post-war plans. The PA , established in the 1990s as part of the then peace process to run areas in the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian control , has said it is willing to play a role in Gaza – which Hamas expelled it from in 2006 – but only if it is part of a clear comprehensive peace plan with Israel that also includes the West Bank. But many doubt its ability to do so, even if there were such a plan. Nasser al-Qudwa , a nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and tipped as a future PA leader himself, said: “I think the current authority, in its present form and with the men leading it, is unable to even set foot in the Gaza Strip, let alone handle the major tasks required at this time.” Other observers, such as former Israel negotiator Daniel Levy, counsel the PA against entering Gaza if security remains an Israeli preserve, as Netanyahu has insisted it will. “I don’t think it would be wise for any Palestinian movement to say, ‘We will do this under the watchful eye of Israel’,” he said. Western policy makers face a huge challenge in transforming the Palestinian Authority Could West Bank body really play a role running Gaza? Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and many Arab leaders, feel it is optimistic to think that “peace-loving Palestinians” are going to stumble out from under the rubble . To assess whether the PA will be capable of taking on this task in Gaza, and is reformable, some explanation for its current parlous state is required. That in turn has to start with an acknowledgment that those calling for a “revitalised” PA are the same actors who have resisted such steps for many years. There are many reasons for the PA’s weakness, some selfimposed, some not. Corruption is widespread, although Palestinian diplomats say it is not endemic. But it has been fi nancially crippled by a US-led donor strike, occasionally supported by the EU. Tony Blair in his eight years as special envoy for the Quartet of PA into a body that is acceptable both to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as to an Israeli prime minister who has spent 15 years reducing the organisation’s infl uence. It also requires clearer understanding on how security and politics will be handled post-war. Some diplomats, such as the US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk , speak of a reformed or revitalised PA to run Gaza and the West Bank. Josep Borrell , the EU foreign aff airs chief, said: “Who will be in control of Gaza? I think only one could do that. The Palestinian Authority.” More vaguely some speak of the need to back “peace-loving Palestinians”, a phrase recently used by the former UK foreign secretary James Cleverly. That implicitly means removing Hamas from Gaza, including debarring its supporters from standing in future elections. The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, says Hamas will not be destroyed easily. He argues that ever since it won legislative elections in 2016 in Gaza and the West Bank, and then violently ejected Fatah, the dominant party in the PA, from Gaza, it has deeply embedded itself in the territory. The truth is no one knows what political mood will emerge from Gaza at the end of the confl ict, but An example of the ‘major tasks’ ahead in Gaza: a ruined residential area in Khan Younis yesterday PHOTOGRAPH: ASHRAF AMRA/ANADOLU VIA GETTY international powers seeking a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians from 2007 also tried hard to construct a functioning PA and largely failed for the familiar reasons that the Israeli-imposed blockade strangled the Palestinian economy. The US, which now champions the PA, has withheld any payments to it since 2017 in protest at the paying of benefi ts to families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed in the confl ict, including militants implicated in attacks against Israelis. The US Congress on a bipartisan basis calls this Pay to Slay, as does Israel. But the PA’s biggest weakness is that it has had to operate on a false assumption. When the PA itself was created in 1994, Palestinian leaders promoted it as a transitional body in a diplomatic process after the Oslo accords that would lead to statehood. Yet the collapse of any worthwhile peace diplomacy and the dwindling prospects of a twostate solution have deprived the PA of its raison d’ être. T he PA has ended up being viewed by Palestinians increasingly as a security sub-contractor for Israel, and in the name of fi ghting terrorism often imposed arbitrary justice on the West Bank. Lawyers for Justice, a group that documents just such cases, estimated that in 2022 alone the PA arrested more than 500 Palestinians for antiIsraeli off ences. The alternative, the PA argued, would be a third intifada and the collapse of the PA. This has all taken a massive toll on the PA’s reputation. Respected opinion polling by the Palestinian Center for Policy and S urvey Research shows that, days before the Hamas assault on Israel , 80% of Palestinians considered the PA corrupt and 62% viewed it as a liability rather than an asset. None of its main institutions enjoys popular legitimacy . The upsurge of violence on the West Bank has only weakened the PA further, playing into the hands of militants that off er West Bank youth a chance to confront Israeli settlers and security forces. . The worry is that in seeking to make the PA the centre of a postwar Palestinian politics , the US may be backing the wrong horse, and under-estimating the resilience of Hamas in Gaza. The jockeying to succeed 88-year-old Mahmoud Abbas as PA president has been under way for years, making the factionalism even worse. Similarly, the one internally generated attempt at PA reform – launched in 2010 and entitled Homestretch to Freedom – ended in disaster for the then prime minister Salam Fayyad . His attempt to root out corruption ended with him being rooted out in 2013. He now lives in Princeton, New Jersey . Western diplomats are not exactly clueless in Gaza about the path ahead, but the task might seem less daunting if they had not simply watched, or worse connived in, the PA’s slow atrophy. ‘It wouldn’t be wise for any Palestinian movement to do this under Israel’s eye’ Daniel Levy Former Israel negotiator ▲ Nasser al-Qudwa believes the PA is not equipped to deal with Gaza

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • National 11 Terry Venables 1943-2023 Tributes paid to manager who took England to verge of glory at Euro 96 Sean Ingle Tributes have been paid to Terry Venables, the hugely charismatic and colourful manager who guided England to the verge of European Championship glory in 1996, after his death on Saturday at 80. Few England managers have been more loved than “El Tel”, whose twoyear tenure in charge of the national team ended in an agonising Euro 96 defeat to Germany on penalties. After his family announced that Venables had died peacefully in his sleep following a long illness, numerous players came forward to praise his supreme tactical and man- management skills. They were led by the former England footballer Gary Neville, who called Venables “without doubt the most technically gifted British coach we’ve ever produced”. That sentiment was echoed by the current England manager, Gareth Southgate, who missed th e crucial penalty against Germany at Wembley. Venables was “an outstanding coach and manager. Tactically excellent, he had a wonderful manner, capable of handling everyone from the youngest player to the biggest star ,” Southgate said. “He was open-minded, forwardthinking, enjoyed life to the full and created a brilliant environment with England that allowed his players to have one of the most memorable tournaments in England history,” he added. While disputes about Venables’ use of the “Christmas tree ” formation raged before Euro 96, England’s startling 4-1 destruction of the Netherlands in the group stages silenced all doubters and made a nation believe that football really was coming home. Writing in the Guardian the next day, David Lacey described it as one of England’s greatest ever displays. “It was like Eliza Doolittle suddenly discovering her aspirates,” he wrote. “The Dutch actually achieved more shots on goal, but English gunnery won the most famous victory seen at Wembley since the 19 66 fi nal.” Venables also achieved not able success in the club game, guiding Crystal Palace and Queens Park Rangers to the fi rst division before moving to Spain, where he ended Barcelona’s 11-year title drought in 1986 and earned his nickname. Later he won the FA Cup with Tottenham in 1991. Gary Lineker, who was managed by Venables at Barcelona and Tottenham, was eff usive: “ [He was] the best, most innovative coach that I had the privilege and pleasure of playing for. But he was much more, though, than just a great manager. “He was vibrant, he was charming, he was witty, he was a friend. He’ll be hugely missed.” Off the pitch Venables was often in the public eye. In the 1970s he coauthored the popular Hazell detective novels with Gordon Williams . He also owned Scribes West , a private members club in Kensington, west London, which he used as an offi ce and a karaoke bar and to entertain selected journalists. But controversy was also a frequent visitor. It was in June 1993 at the Old Bailey during a court case between Venables and the then Tottenham chairman, Alan Sugar, that the word “bung ” fi rst entered football’s vernacular . It came after Sugar claimed in court that Venables had told him that a transfer would proceed quicker if a brown envelope full of cash was given to then Nottingham Forest manager, Brian Clough, in a motorway service station. While the bungs inquiry that followed claimed only one scalp – that of the Arsenal manager George Graham – Venables was back in court in October 1996, where he was ordered to pulp all remaining copies of his autobiography and pay £100,001 in damages to Sugar after a libel action . Venables claimed victory regardless, saying that most of the books had already been sold. Shortly afterwards Venables was also banned from being a company director for seven years after a Department of Trade and Industry case that related to Venables’ alleged mismanagement of four companies, including Scribes West and Tottenham. However, he remained loved by football fans for his brand of progressive and highly entertaining football, which was far ahead of its time. Venables was also a talented player, making 526 appearances and winning the League Cup at Chelsea and the FA Cup with Tottenham as well as two England caps. After he retired from football he moved permanently to Spain, where he ran a hotel and restaurant with wife, Yvette , in Alicante. In a statement, Venables’ family said they were “totally devastated by the loss of a wonderful husband and father who passed away peacefully after a long illness” , adding: “We would ask that privacy be given at this incredibly sad time to allow us to mourn the loss of this lovely man who we were so lucky to have had in our lives.” Obituary Journal Page 6  Terry Venables Sport Pages 38-42  Venables during a training session in 1960. He made 526 appearances as a player with clubs including Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur ▼ Venables, centre, and Ken Brown playing football in 1965 in the Dagenham street where they were born PHOTOGRAPH: NORMAN QUICKE/ GETTY IMAGES ▼ Paul Gascoigne, Terry Venables and Gary Lineker after Tottenham won the FA Cup fi nal in 1991 PHOTOGRAPH: PA IMAGES/ ALAMY  Venables in April 1966 with his fi rst wife, Christine McCann , at their wedding in Dagenham PHOTOGRAPH: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY ‘He was vibrant, he was a friend. He’ll be hugely missed’ Gary Lineker on his former manager

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Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • National 13 ▲ Lee Anderson, a Tory deputy chair, told activists another party off ered him ‘a lot of money’ to join it PHOTOGRAPH: MATTHEW HORWOOD/GETTY Reform UK leader says no money off ered to Tory MPs to defect Aletha Adu Pollitical correspondent Conservative MPs have not been off ered money to defect to Reform UK, the party’s leader, Richard Tice, has stressed, amid claims that Lee Anderson was off ered “a lot of money” to do so. Anderson, the MP for Ashfi eld and one of the Conservative party’s deputy chairs, was recorded telling Tory activists last month: “ A political party that begins with an R off ered me a lot of money to join them. I mean a lot of money, I mean a lot of money.” The leaked recording, obtained by the Sunday Times , was from a “lagers with Lee” meeting at Cambridge rugby club, hosted by the South Cambridgeshire Conservative Association, during which Anderson said Reform UK would win “zero seats” at the next election. Tice rejected the claims, saying he had “numerous discussions with a number of Tory MPs, ministers and former ministers who are absolutely furious with the complete betrayal of the government’s promises, furious with their failure to stop the boats, furious with opening the borders to mass immigration”. But, he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: recording that the Conservatives were “not perfect” and that he hated campaigning with the motto that the “opposition’s worse than us”, but warned them that a vote for Reform was a vote for Labour. At the Reform party conference, Farage joined Tice in accusing the Conservatives of copying their rhetoric on immigration, “but not the actions”. The pair have sought to paint the Reform party as an alternative for those on the Tory right who voted leave in the 2016 EU referendum. Farage has been seeking to win over television viewers with his stint on the reality show I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!. Reform UK has taken only a small slice of the vote in by elections. Recent YouGov polling found that voters who supported the Tories in 2019 were more likely to switch to Reform than to Labour, and there have been suggestions that such switchers cost Sunak’s party the recent byelection in Mid Bedfordshire. years – even if the y lost their seats. Hart was reported as highlighting that Tories were being off ered £400,000- plus “bribes” to defect . On Saturday night, the Conservative party confi rmed it now ha d 10 deputy chairs, including Rachel Maclean , who was sacked as housing minister, and Sara Britcliff e , the youngest Tory MP elected in the 2019 election at the age of 24. The Conservatives are aware of the threat posed by the newly named Reform UK: the Brexit party, with Rishi Sunak warning disgruntled Tory voters: “A vote for everyone who is not a Conservative is a vote to put Keir Starmer into offi ce.” His remarks were echoed by the chief secretary to the Treasury, Laura Trott . Reform UK, previously named the Brexit party and headed by Nigel Farage, has never had any MPs. In the coming weeks, Reform UK will announce hundreds of candidates as it seeks to build on the momentum behind a stated desire to “destroy” the Conservatives. Even at the cost of splitting the rightwing vote, Tice has said every Tory candidate will face a Reform opponent in the next general election, dismissing any rerun of the 2019 deal in which the Brexit party stood aside in more than 300 Tory-held seats after Boris Johnson gave commitments on a hard Brexit. Anderson told activists in the ‘Let me make it clear, no cash or money has been off ered’ Richard Tice Leader of Reform UK “Let me make it absolutely clear, no cash or money has in any way been off ered .” Tice claimed that Anderson had “used the threat of defecting to Reform to negotiate himself the deputy chairmanship”. Anderson has been approached for comment. It was reported this year that the Conservative chief whip, Simon Hart, had reported Reform UK to the Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, over allegations that the party had off ered MPs who defected a full salary for fi ve

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 Crime agency interviews Hancock and Gove over £200m contracts for PPE Vikram Dodd Aletha Adu David Conn Corruption investigators examining potential criminal wrongdoing in the awarding of multi millionpound contracts during the Covid crisis have interviewed Matt Hancock and Michael Gove as witnesses. The National Crime Agency (NCA) is investigating the company PPE Medpro, which won £200m in contracts and with which the Tory peer Michelle Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, were involved. Both Hancock, the former health secretary, and Gove, a former Cabinet Offi ce minister, were interviewed as NCA investigators sought to understand how and why contracts were awarded and whether any criminal laws were broken. Investigators do not suspect either senior politician of wrongdoing nor is there any suggestion of such. The two -and -a -half year long criminal investigation is overseen by the NCA’s international corruption unit. This month, Mone acknowledged for the first time that she was involved with the company , which was awarded government PPE contracts worth £200m during the Covid pandemic. Barrowman, a businessman based in the Isle of Man, also acknowledged he was involved in PPE Medpro. A representative told the Guardian that Barrowman was an investor in PPE Medpro, and chaired the operation supplying personal protective equipment. The statement followed repeated denials of any involvement. Mone, Barrowman and a spokesperson for PPE Medpro have not commented on the NCA investigation. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is taking legal action for the full return of the £122m it paid for millions of unused surgical gowns that PPE Medpro supplied under one of its contracts , with the government claiming these gowns were unsafe for use in the NHS. The company is defending the claim. The contracts had been processed through the DHSC’s “VIP” high priority lane, which fast-tracked off ers of PPE from fi rms with connections to the Tory party or government. The DHSC granted PPE Medpro two contracts, in May and June 2020, for millions of face masks and sterile surgical gowns , for a total of £203m. The Guardian previously revealed that Mone made the fi rst approach to Gove and Theodore Agnew, then also a Cabinet Offi ce minister , telling them she could source PPE through her “ team in Hong Kong”. Documents indicate that tens of millions of pounds of PPE Medpro’s profi ts were later transferred to a secret off - shore trust of which Mone and her adult children were the benefi ciaries. The Guardian also reported that leaked HSBC bank documents indicated Barrowman was paid at least £65m from PPE Medpro’s profi ts, then transferred £29m into a trust for Mone and her three adult children. The NCA said its international corruption unit had opened an investigation in May 2021 “into suspected criminal off ences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro”. An NCA spokesperson declined to comment on the interviews with Gove and Hancock . In April 2022 the NCA investigation led to searches at properties in London and the Isle of Man. These included the Isle of Man offi ce building where PPE Medpro is registered, and the mansion where Mone and Barrowman live. On Wednesday search warrants were applied to four island addresses regarding the NCA investigation. There were no arrests. The NCA witness interviews with Hancock and Gove were fi rst reported by the Sunday Times , then confi rmed by multiple sources . Both men have been approached for comment. ▲ Lady Mone has now acknowledged her involvement in PPE Medpro Sally Weale Education correspondent The family of the head teacher Ruth Perry , whose death after a critical Ofsted inspection will be the subject of a high-profi le inquest this week , have been refused legal aid to fund their representation just days before the hearing is due to start. While other interested parties – Ofsted, the local council and the NHS trust – will , as public bodies , have their legal costs paid out of the public purse, Perry’s family say they have had to resort to crowdfunding to pay their s. As of last night, more than £ 40,000 had been raised from 2, 700 donations . The inquest is due to start at Berkshire coroner s’ court tomorrow. Perry’s family have said she was “devastated” and killed herself after an Ofsted inspection downgraded her school, Caversham primary in Reading , from “outstanding” to “inadequate” over errors in safeguarding training and procedures. The family’s Go Fund Me page says that Ofsted, Reading borough council and Berkshire Healthcare NHS foundation trust “will de facto have their legal costs paid from the public purse”, but the family will receive no fi nancial support. “We believe this legal and fi nancial inequity to be unjust ,” it adds. The government’s position is that for most inquests, families do not need legal representation as the coroner asks questions on the family’s behalf. A minority of cases can access “exceptional case funding” . The family argued they should receive legal aid due to public interest in the case. In a statement, Perry’s sister, Julia Waters , thanked those who had donated, adding: “ No bereaved family should have to go through the gruelling experience of an inquest … without proper legal support .” The Ministry of Justice was contacted for comment. An Ofsted spokesperson said: “We were deeply saddened by the death of Ruth Perry … We have listened to the public debate around our inspections … and we announced measures to improve aspects of our work with schools in the summer .” In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 , or email [email protected] Headteacher’s family denied legal aid for inquest hearing ▲ Ruth Perry’s family said she killed herself after a critical Ofsted report

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • National 15 Alexandra Topping The UK is bracing for a week of cold weather that has produced wint ry scenes across the country at the weekend, with temperatures remaining low in many areas over the week ahead. The Met Offi ce warned yesterday of a “potential snow event” by the end of th e week as people prepare to begin Christmas shopping in earnest. Temperatures dropped below freezing in parts of the UK overnight yesterday, creating frosty scenes . In parts of Scotland temperatures fell to -5C (23F) in the early hours yesterday , and in many areas of northern England and Wales overnight temperatures were at or close to zero. On Saturday a “lunar halo” Alexandra Topping Most people appreciate a decent local shop , but if that shop is the only one on your island, it takes on a much greater signifi cance. Which is why there were celebrations on the Scottish island of Lismore this week, after its community saved its only shop – also its bank, post offi ce and social hub – after funding a buyout. There was consternation among Lismore’s 160 permanent residents when the shop was threatened with closure . Faced with the prospect of a three-hour round trip to Oban for an emergency loaf of bread, the island communities encouraged residents and tourists to buy shares in the Lismore store. Now the shop will be able to buy the start-up stock it needs, carry out refurbishments and keep the business ticking over . “It is not just somewhere where people buy groceries, it is somewhere people can come, chat, fi nd the craic,” said the Lismore Community Trust chair, Andy Hough . – caused by the refraction of moonlight from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere – was spotted in skies across England. Greg Dewhurst , a Met Office meteorologist, said snow was possible as a cold front arrived midweek, with Friday marking the start of the meteorological winter. Dan Harris , a Met Offi ce deputy chief meteorologist, said: “ The most likely outcome beyond midweek is that rain from the west slowly moves east, with snow possible over higher ground, and a continued risk of showers over eastern parts. However, there is a chance a more active weather system arrives from the south -west, which would bring more widespread rain, stronger winds and the potential for more signifi cant snowfall should the air become suffi ciently cold.” Warning of snow by end of week as cold front takes hold Islanders rescue shop that avoids a three-hour trip ▼ People gather atop Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh on Saturday night to view the full moon. Below, a frosty dog walk in south-east London PHOTOGRAPH: PHIL WILKINSON

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 16 National Please donate what you can, today. Call 0300 023 0823 or visit redcross.org.uk/lives Text LIVES to 70141 to make a £10 donation. By texting, you consent to future telephone and SMS marketing contact from British Red Cross. Text LIVES NO to 70141 to give £10 without consenting to calls and texts.* I enclose a cheque, made payable to British Red Cross OR Please debit my Visa/Mastercard/CAF Charity card with the amount specifi ed I would like to make a donation of £20 £40 £60 £100 Other £ Please send to: Winter Appeal 2023 Ref: 185715, Freepost Plus RUCB–JCXU–SRSJ, British Red Cross, Bumpers Way, Bumpers Farm, CHIPPENHAM, SN14 6NG Card number Title Forename Surname Address Postcode Phone number** Email** * *Please only give us your telephone number/email address if you are happy for us to contact you in this way with updates about how your gifts are helping and how you can donate and help in other ways. 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For full details about how we use personal data, our legal basis for doing so and your privacy rights, please see our privacy notice online at redcross.org.uk/privacy. *Texts cost £10 +1 standard message (we receive 100%). For full T&Cs visit redcross.org.uk/mobile. The British Red Cross Society, incorporated by Royal Charter 1908, is a charity registered in England and Wales (220949), Scotland (SC037738), Isle of Man (0752) and Jersey (430). 185715 Guardian readers, we need you right now. Just as we’re supporting people through the unthinkable in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, we’re still providing vital aid after earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, all while helping people get through another tough winter in the UK. Thousands missing loved ones. Children torn apart from parents. The vulnerable being pushed to breaking point. With costs rising and the number of emergencies increasing, we’re struggling to reach people. Please can you help us? People depend on us. We depend on you. Urgent appeal for donations Together, we are the world’s emergency responders Cinderella Lyric Hammersmith ★★★☆☆ Chris Wiegand I n 2021, Camila Cabello was a screen Cinderella with dreams of opening a dress boutique . Last year, the fi lm Sneakerella reimagined the fairytale heroine as a boy who longs to design trainers. Lyric Hammersmith’s Cinders outdoes them both. Tilly La Belle Yengo plays her eff ervescently as a selfdeclared “boss lady”, fl ogging her range of knitwear for rodents at a Shepherd’s Bush Market stall. Respect to the design studio Good Teeth for their preposterous costumes, including the snug furry suit worn by a gerbil who starts the party with a rejig of Pulp’s Disco 2000, refl ecting the year Cinderella was born. In the blink of a false eyelash, this pop-powered panto is on to Bootylicious when Emmanuel Akwafo makes quite the entrance, with an immaculate golden mane and a voice trembling with unseemly desires, as the stepmum, Lady Jelly Bottom. Pity the chap in the front row whose jumper screams “husband material” to her. So far so fun, but Tonderai Munyevu ’s production of Vikki Stone ’s script draws more smiles than belly laughs. A udience participation to test the fi rmness of LJB’s buttocks looks set to provide a cringe-comedy humdinger but peters out, and Cinderella’s pranks on her stepsisters, Muff y ( Charlie Cameron ) and Gusset ( Meghan Treadway ), are tepid. While you don’t look to panto for logic, it’s hard to see why this Cinderella wouldn’t stroll into the ball anyway arranged by Corin Buckeridge , often provides high-energy set pieces choreographed by Arielle Smith . Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit of ...) is amusingly retooled as a speed-dating event , Sam Smith’s Unholy is catnip for Akwafo and the catchy M.A.R.K.E.T. (with music and lyrics by Stone) brings together other fairytale visitors. Cinderella’s makeover from Fairy ( Jodie Jacobs ) is seamless and Stone cleverly writes in other transformations in a show that is buoyant, playful and daft without quite delivering that delirious panto rush. U ntil 6 January Theatre review A pop-powered panto with amusingly retooled tunes Jessica Murray Ultra-processed foods are viewed as no more appealing than less processed foods, research has found. A Bristol University study compared taste perception to test the theory that calories and processing level are key to how much we like and desire food . Prof Peter Rogers, the lead author, said the results “challenge the assumption that ultra-processed foods are ‘hyperpalatable’ ”. In the study, 224 adult s looked at colour images of 24 to 32 familiar foods varying in calories, processing and carbohydrate-to-fat ratio, including avocado, grapes, cashew nuts, king prawns, olives, muffi ns, crispbread and ice-cream, and rated the m for taste pleasantness , desire to eat, sweetness and saltiness . Results , published in the journal Appetite , showed on average UPFs were no more liked or desired than other foods, but foods tasting more intense, related to sweetness and saltiness , were more liked and desired. Ultra-processed food ‘not more appealing’: study or why the Prince ( Damien James ), having met her at the market, doesn’t return to her stall the morning after midnight strikes instead of going door to door. The music, composed and Tilly La Belle Yengo as Cinderella ▼ Emmanuel Akwafo as Lady Jelly Bottom, fl anked by Meghan Treadway and Charlie Cameron as the stepsisters, Gusset and Muff y PHOTOGRAPH: TRISTRAM KENTON/THE GUARDIAN

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • National 17 ‘Designed to inspire’: new online archive of all Royal Court plays Jessica Murray Police are investigating after a fi ght broke out between theatregoers during a performance of Hamilton in Manchester. Offi cers were called to an altercation between two audience members on Friday night, days after the hit musical opened at the Palace theatre at the start of a nationwide tour. A spokesperson for Greater Manchester police said: “Offi cers were called to Oxford Street in the city centre at about 10 .30pm on Friday 24 November 2023 to a report of an assault. An investigation is ongoing at this time with no arrests made. “Thankfully, injuries sustained are not believed to be life threatening.” One report of the incident posted online said “staff were desperately trying to keep them apart” and commended the cast on stage for “not letting it distract them”. In April, a performance of The Body guard at the same theatre was halted after several members of the audience refused to remain seated and refrain from singing loudly, leading to them being “forcibly removed”. A report from the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre union this year found nearly one-third of theatre staff said they had been involved in or had witnessed an incident where a venue had to call the police, with 20% having feared for their safety at least once. Greater Manchester police urged anyone with information about the fi ght during Hamilton to get in touch: “Anyone with information that may help offi cers with their inquiries are asked to call 101 quoting incident 3783 of 24 November 2023.” Investigation into fi ght at Hamilton show in Manchester Harriet Sherwood Arts and culture correspondent The Royal Court has launched a free digital archive of every play performed at the London theatre since 1956 as a resource for writers, directors and members of the public. Almost 2,000 plays by more than 1,000 writers are accessible on the theatre’s Living Archive , along with lists of their casts and directors. Vicky Featherstone , the Royal Court’s artistic director, said: “Theatre is so ephemeral, so experiential, and that’s one of the most incredible things about it. That’s why we are addicted to live [events] and why I never fear it will go away. “But the Royal Court today stands on the shoulders of giants. The knowledge of earlier writers and the plays that have gone before feeds into the craft of today’s writers.” George Devine , the co-founder and fi rst artistic director of the English Stage Company, which became the Royal Court, wanted a writers’ theatre and pledged to discover “hard- hitting, uncompromising writers”. He placed an advert in the Stage in January 1956 calling for scripts and received more than 700 submissions. Among them was Look Back in Anger by John Osborne , a play expressing the frustration of young people in the 1950s that had been rejected by Laurence Olivier, Terence Rattigan and Binkie Beaumont . It became the fi rst play to be performed at the Royal Court, to empty houses and mostly negative reviews. The theatre considers more than 2,000 unsolicited scripts each year, hosts writers’ groups and develop s relationships with writers around the world. The Royal Court’s physical archive is held by the V&A, but Featherstone wanted to create an easily accessible digital archive . “The Royal Court has always been about writers, and it’s clear that new generations of writers are infl uenced by the writers of the past. Their works shouldn’t be forgotten ,” she said. Initially, about 100 of the 2,000 plays are accompanied by a synopsis and are searchable. There is space for users to contribute – for example, by off ering a programme to be digitised. “It is open, accessible, exciting and will challenge traditional notions of archives,” said Sula Douglas-Folkes , the lead researcher and project coordinator. The archive was “designed to inspire writers, theatre enthusiasts and creatives to engage with our past and in doing so to ignite the creation of new and meaningful work” , she added. Emily Dugan The bulldozers will soon be out for the south London council fl at that was Aysen Dennis’s home for 30 years. After leading a battle against the council and developers, claiming plans to fi ll much of her estate with private housing amounted to “social cleansing ”, she has fi nally moved. Dennis, 65, has been relocated to a swanky new development bought back by Southwark council. She claims it paid £690,000 for her ninthfl oor fl at with views of a park – and is convinced it was an attempt to shut her up before a legal challenge. If it was, it has not worked. Tomorrow, Dennis will be in the high court continuing her fight against the council and a housing association, Notting Hill Genesis , over the redevelopment of the Aylesbury estate, once the location of 2,000 council homes . Since she is still a resident, albeit in one of the new blocks , her case remains. “Nothing will stop me until I die,” she said. “Even after this court case I’m going to take it wherever it takes me. ” Dennis sees the court case as part of a wider attempt to stop councils and developers making it harder for council tenants to live in central London. The second phase of the redevelopment proposed a cut in social-rented homes in favour of shared ownership, and at least 50% privatisation. The legal challenge will argue that the council was unlawful in granting an application to tweak the wording of the planning permission to regenerate the estate . The change makes it easier to wave through new projects that diff er from the original plan. Lawyers say residents made to leave their homes were not consulted on the plans that diff ered from the original permission. Gains – such as restricting the height of buildings to 20 storeys to allow light into the area – could be lost with a proposed 25- storey all-private tower. “This is a political choice they are making, because they don’t want us to occupy a zone 1 area next to the park,” Dennis said. “ We are just things to throw away when it comes to working -class minority ethnic council tenants. ” The block she now lives in was bought by Southwark in 2020 for £193m. “They could have used that money to refurbish our estate,” she said. “We were not asking for much.” Alexandra Goldenberg, a solicitor for Dennis at the Public Interest Law Centre, said: “We hope this case demonstrates that it is worth pursuing justice and accountability from those who seek to develop public land such as housing estates. ” A Notting Hill Genesis spokesperson said the provider was “committed to delivering homes that Londoners can aff ord” . “ We are very proud of our plans for the regeneration of the Aylesbury estate. Replacing old, ineffi cient homes with warm, safe, high-quality housing ... will benefi t existing and future residents alike.” Helen Dennis, a Southwark council cabinet member , said: “ It’s so important we’re replacing homes that were badly built in the 60s and 70s, which are reaching the end of their life.” Tenant in high court challenge over plan to reduce social housing on London estate ▲ Top Girls at the Royal Court , 1991. Its writer, Caryl Churchill, is one of many the theatre has nurtured PHOTOGRAPH: ALASTAIR MUIR/REX FEATURES ▲ Aysen Dennis believes developers see council tenants as disposable

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• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 20 National Michael Goodier Denis Campbell I t was during a routine eye test in February last year whe n Andrew Battye, a former NHS worker , realised something was wrong. The keen painter, 68, had been returning some new glasses because they did n ot seem to be working when he was told the sight in his left eye had degenerated. He was diagnosed at Harrogate district hospital with wet agerelated macular degeneration , an eye disease that can rapidly blur the central vision if left untreated. Despite the swift diagnosis, it took almost three weeks before he received his fi rst stabilising injection. “In that three weeks I lost a lot of vision,” he said. He was told he needed monthly treatments to keep the condition at bay. But “it’s been anything up to nine weeks ”, he said. Three or four of his appointments have involved a long delay that can irreversibly aff ect eyesight. “It’s a battle to get your appointment. My last one was supposed to be [after] four weeks and was seven and a half weeks ,” he said. “I … get to see an optometrist on every third visit , waiting three months [between checks] instead of one. The hospital says they’re trying to recruit people but they just haven’t got enough .” Battye is angry at the missed opportunity to protect his sight. “You feel frustrated, but you also feel scared knowing you could lose your sight,” he said. Nathaniel Dye, 37, a music teacher and jazz musician, knows he waited too long after developing possible signs of bowel cancer in spring 2022 before visiting his GP that September. Once he did, he was shocked by how long it took to get diagnosed – his cancer was at stage 4 – and start treatment. “ I had an agonising three-week wait to get the [biopsy] result … I was in bits ,” he said. But the most worrying delay was the 15 weeks between seeing his GP and starting chemotherapy. “ People are in shock when I tell them that ,” he said. “I should have started treatment within a month. Those 15 weeks are a sign of a very stretched system. There’s a chance my cancer could have been nipped in the bud if the NHS was more effi cient .” But Dye is philosophical . “It’s too late for me,” he said. “But I want to use the time I’ve got left to urge people to see a doctor if they have any symptom that might be cancer, get themselves checked and demand prompt care .” Victims of romance fraud set up help group to raise awareness Diane Taylor Victims of romance fraud conned out of thousands and left emotional wrecks are having their distress compounded by police telling them no crime has been committed and it is just “boyfriend trouble” . Now two women who have been victims have teamed up to change perceptions of the crime in the hope of it being treated more seriously. Cecilie Fjellhøy and Anna Rowe have set up LoveSaid to raise awareness and are raising funds to provide support programmes for victims. Fjellhøy, who featured in the 2022 Netfl ix true crime documentary The Tinder Swindler , was conned by a man calling himself Simon Leviev and parted with $250,000 (£200,000) after he repeatedly asked for help with his “breached” security status as a “high-level diamond trader” (a fake job) . She and other women who were his victims were determined to catch him. Although he served time in prison, he was allegedly operating scams again in Germany after his release, Fjellhøy said. Rowe was scammed by a man whom she thought loved her but who sexually exploited her. She said police were initially dismissive when she reported him and it took two years for them to take on the case. She compiled a dossier of 16 other cases, including two rapes and a sexual assault; a fi le on eight or nine of the cases was still being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service. According to data from Lloyds Bank in February, romance scams increased by 30% last year, with men making up 53% of cases and people aged 65 to 74 most likely to be scammed into sending money . In October City of London police published data for the last fi nancial year from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau citing 8,036 reports of fraud that led to a loss of more than £92m . Fjellhøy said she wanted to be viewed as a victim. “After being told by police: ‘ It’s not really a crime’ – if that was the treatment I got, and my case was really high profi le, what will they do to others?” Rowe said there was a particular kind of trauma associated with romance fraud. “You have an illusion of a relationship. It’s that soulmate connection dreamt of. What this man did to me was somehow give me confi dence in myself. When I realised this guy never existed it made me feel much worse. It’s double grieving. “It’s not something you can get over easily. I’m seven years down the line now and the emotions are still bubbling under the surface. That’s why it is so important long-term support is available for victims .” Fjellhøy and Rowe are keen to alter the language around this crime. “Saying ‘you fell for a scam’ blames the victim. People don’t say ‘ you fell for a burglary’. No. Victims of romance fraud are targeted and exploited.” Case studies The patients facing agonising waits for treatment on the NHS ‘There’s a chance my cancer could have been nipped in the bud if the NHS was more effi cient’ Nathaniel Dye Music teacher ‘It’s a battle to get your appointment … I lost a lot of vision’ Andrew Battye Former NHS worker Andrew Battye says delays to his treatment for wet agerelated macular degeneration have aff ected his vision PHOTOGRAPH: ANDREW BATTYE ▲ Cecilie Fjellhøy and Anna Rowe have teamed up to highlight the crime NHS fi gures show at least 112 patient deaths last year were caused by delays who came to “severe harm” jumped from 96 to 152 , while the overall number suff ering some degree of harm rose 97%, from 3,979 to 7,856 . “These data are alarming and show quite clearly the human impact the crisis in the NHS is having on individual patients,” said Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association . “We have been watching a disaster unfolding across the NHS and have repeatedly warned about the threat to patient safety because of it.” Trusts are reducing the amount of planned surgery after the government refusa l to provide a £1bn bailout to help cover the cost of staff strikes. This, Power added, “will translate into even more patients waiting for care and potentially coming to harm ”. A total of 471 patients waiting for adult mental health care suff ered harm as a result of delay last year – more than in any other specialism. The next highest numbers were in childbirth (253), eye problems (221) and trauma & general surgery (207). NHS England gave the Guardian anonymous details of 30 of last year’s 112 deaths. One entry said: “Long delay in call answer on critical call. Original call into [unnamed ambulance service] 18 minutes prior to fi rst related call answered. Call coded as cardiac arrest once answered and patient deceased on scene.” Someone suff ering a cardiac arrest is meant to be seen by an ambulance crew within seven minutes of a call . Several other deaths involved ambulance services “stacking” 999 calls – in which people are kept on hold . In another case, a patient starting chemotherapy for follicular lymphoma was then diagnosed with hepatitis B . They were treated but were then not seen in the hepatitis clinic and did not receive a further dose of a drug , tenofovir . They developed fulminant hepatitis B and died . The fi gures are from the NHS’s National Reporting and Learning System , in which staff make an entry if they think a patient has had poor care. The Guardian obtained the data through a freedom of information request to NHS England , which only released the data after the information commissioner intervened. It should have released the fi gures after a month, but took fi ve to do so. Louise Ansari, the chief executive of Healthwatch, the statutory patient champion, said : “We know that delays to care have signifi cant impacts on people’s lives, putting many in danger. People told us about being removed from waiting lists, sometimes without being told why – or without being told at all .” Paul Whiteing , chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents, a patient safety charity, said the big rise in incidents was “shocking” . He added: “Sadly they accord with what we are hearing daily from patients who contact us .” NHS England’s fi gures are almost certainly a signifi cant underestimate . A&E doctors have estimated that up to 500 people a week may be dying because of delays in getting an ambulance, receiving A&E care or starting specialist treatment. Ambulance service bosses calculated that 6,000 people were exposed to “severe harm” in December 2022 alone . The NHS said cases of delay leading to harm were “rare” . A spokesperson said when they did happen, “trusts are required to investigate them and understand what has happened so they can take eff ective steps to further improve. “To meet the continued record demand, the NHS has prepared earlier than ever before for this winter – rolling out 800 new ambulances and 10,000 virtual ward beds while waiting times for ambulances, 999 calls and in A&E have improved across the country during this fi nancial year.” Continued from page 1

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • Energy security 21 China’s coal reliance fuels climate fears Page24 ‘Politics won’t save us’: Fears for Dutch climate law after far-right election win Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent The success of Geert Wilders ’ farright PVV party in Dutch elections has left climate activists fearful of a drastic shift to fossil fuels and a rollback of climate pledges if it manages to form a government. Best known abroad for its antiMuslim rhetoric , the PVV – which came fi rst in last week’s election but may struggle to fi nd coalition partners – has taken a hard line on policies to stop the planet getting hotter. The party wants to extract more oil and gas from the North Sea and stop building wind turbines and solar farms. It also wants to abolish Dutch climate law and leave the Paris agreement on climate change. “If these elections make one thing clear, it’s that politics will not save us,” said Yolande Schuur from the Dutch branch of Extinction Rebellion. The PVV, whose success with voters has been praised by far-right leaders across Europe , has said it is not going to waste billions on “pointless climate hobbies”. Its manifesto says the climate has always changed and that the Netherlands – 26% of which lies below sea level – can adapt . “We will stop the hysterical reduction of CO2 with which we, as a small country, mistakenly think we can save the climate.” The Dutch are among the biggest polluters in Europe. Per person, the Netherlands pumped more planetheating gas into the atmosphere in 2021 than all other EU member states bar Estonia, the Czech Republic, Ireland and Luxembourg. “PVV is close to climate denialism,” said Heleen de Coninck , professor of climate policy at Eindhoven University of Technology . “It’s not quite denying that climate change is happening and human-made any more, but this is a recent turn.” Despite this, said De Coninck, the party’s most extreme views may be tempered even as part of a ruling coalition. “For many of its proposals, the party will not fi nd a majority at all in parliament,” she said. “There was an easy majority for the climate law in parliament and that has n’t changed.” Kees van der Leun , the managing director of the energy consultancy Common Futures, agreed most Dutch lawmakers favoured “staying the course”. He said climate policies were guided by EU commitments, eff orts to end its dependence on Russian gas and growing interest from businesses. “In my view, the election outcome isn’t likely to signifi cantly slow down our climate policies.” The EU has committed to cutting emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by the end of the decade, before reaching net zero by 2050. The Netherlands is a vocal force in EU climate debates and its former deputy prime minister Wopke Hoekstra is the bloc’s top climate envoy . Dick van Dam, a researcher at the Netherlands environment agency, said the infl uence of the election on the climate “may be felt more in Brussels than in The Hague ”. But the prospect of a so-called “Nexit” could change this. PVV wants a referendum on taking the Netherlands out of the EU, though Wilders has said cutting immigration is his priority. Two other centre-right parties from which Wilders may seek support – the VVD of the outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte and the NSC of Pieter Omtzigt – have committed to remaining in the EU and supporting the Paris agreement. “Wilders will need at least two other parties to form a coalition,” said Silke Mooldijk , an analyst at the environmental thinktank NewClimate Institute . “While climate mitigation is not a top priority of either the VVD or the NSC, we don’t expect these parties to agree to a complete standstill of national climate policies.” Activists are more fearful. Andy Palmen , director of the Dutch branch of Greenpeace, said: “The climate, our oceans, healthy nature and sustainable agriculture are all at stake.” Schuur said the PVV had enough seats to align with delayers and deniers in other parties to block needed policies. “Even if the PVV is not part of the new government, they can frustrate necessary climate action with 37 seats [out of 150] in the House of Representatives.” ▲ Geert Wilders’ PVV party wants to encourage oil and gas extraction Marching with Pride Members of the LGBTQ+ community at Delhi’s Pride parade yesterday. The event attracted thousands and came after India’s supreme court refused to legalise samesex marriages last month. PHOTOGRAPH: SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/GETTY United States Native Americans take rodeo reins Page 25

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 22 Eyewitness

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • ▼ Kraków, Poland 23 The Unesco-listed Main Square and its Christmas market, which has been ranked as the best in Europe PHOTOGRAPH: OMAR MARQUES/ANADOLU/GETTY

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 24 World China Beijing struggles to balance climate pledges with focus on energy security Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent China’s addiction to building coalfired power plants is becoming increasingly entrenched, even while the country is on track to peak its CO2 emissions before its 2030 target. As climate officials prepare to meet in the United Arab Emirates for C op28, many hope the recent climate deal between the US and China, released days before Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in California, can lay the groundwork for positive commitments at the UN’s climate conference. The last major Cop breakthrough involving China was in Glasgow in 2021, when Beijing pledged to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. Xi said China would “strictly control coalfi red power generation projects”. But 2021 was also the year in which power outages blighted much of China, causing rationing, shut factories and cold homes . In 2022, energy crunches in south-west China underlined the importance of stable supplies , putting the pledge to reduce reliance on coal-fi red energy in direct tension with the emphasis on energy security. “Chinese offi cials view coal as the primary guarantee of energy security,” said Anders Hove, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “For this reason, it is now considered sensitive to criticise the country’s present investments in coal.” Local offi cials in China approved 50.4GW of new coal power in the fi rst half of 2023. And in 2022, construction started on 50GW of coal capacity, six times as much as the rest of the world combined. Despite growing demand for energy, China still has far more coal power capacity than it needs. Last year the average utilisation rate for coal power plants was just over 50%. Experts say the way to ensure China’s energy security is to improve the technological infrastructure of the grid to make it more stable and effi - cient, not build new dirty generators. “Energy storage is the key for China’s energy transition,” said Gao Yuhe, a senior campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia. Storage can enable “renewable energy to take a leading role in the whole energy transition”. Coal power plants take a long time to power up and cool down, meaning they are relatively infl exible. Renewable energy storage enables the grid to overcome the problem that most of China’s renewable energy is generated in the west of the country , while most energy is consumed in the east. Getting energy to the right place at the right time is a major challenge for China’s energy transition. Local government offi cials more concerned with keeping the lights on than with green targets see coal as a safety net. During last year’s power crunch in Sichuan, a heatwave raised demand for energy as people turned on airconditioning . At the same time, a drought meant there was much less hydropower energy generation. “Sichuan suddenly couldn’t meet their electricity export obligations and meet local demand,” said Lauri Myllyvirta , lead analyst for the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air . A rigid energy planning system meant the province kept exporting energy, even when it created local blackouts. “Local governments do not want to phase out coal as soon as pos sible,” said Gao, adding that the central government’s emphasis on energy security had empowered local offi - cials further to permit new coal. Hua Wen, a China project director at the Natural Resources Defence Council, says the top fi ve provinces that have approved the most new coal power since 2021 “are China’s industrial powerhouses and net electricity importers. These provinces are seeking to reduce their reliance on imported electricity to meet their increasing electricity demand [and] to prevent or reduce the risk of future power shortages.” Wen said some smaller and more ineffi cient coal power plants had been closed in recent years, partially off setting the surge in new approvals. Recent polic ies suggest China is doubling down on coal, even as the rapid construction of green energy infrastructure means the average annual rise in its energy demands can be serviced entirely by low-carbon energy. Its solar capacity now exceeds the rest of the world combined, but coal still accounts for more than half of total energy consumption. In November, Beijing released a coal capacity compensation mechanism , which comes into eff ect on 1  January and guarantees payments to coal-fi red power producers based on installed capacity. This could encourage the building of more coal plants, Hove says. Other analysts say it will allow more renewables to enter the mix without risking stability. ▲ A coal-fi red plant in Hanchuan, Hubei province . China is still building many such power plants Health Big rise in respiratory illnesses not caused by a new virus, says ministry Associated Press Beijing A surge in respiratory illnesses across China that has drawn the attention of the World Health Organization is being caused by the fl u and other known pathogens and not by a novel virus, the country’s health ministry said yesterday . Recent clusters of respiratory infections are caused by an overlap of common viruses such as the infl uenza virus, rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and adenovirus , as well as bacteria such as mycoplasma pneumoniae , which is a common culprit for respiratory tract infections, a National Health Commission spokesperson said. The ministry has called on local authorities to open more fever clinics and promote vaccinations among children and older people as China grapples with a wave of respiratory illnesses in its fi rst full winter since the removal of C ovid-19 restrictions. “Efforts should be made to increase the opening of relevant clinics and treatment areas, extend service hours and increase the supply of medicines,” said the ministry spokes person, Mi Feng. He advised including in Beijing, and health authorities have asked the public to take children with less severe symptoms to clinics and other facilities. The WHO said that there was too little information at the moment to properly assess the risk of these reported cases of respiratory illness in children. Both Chinese authorities and the WHO have been accused of a lack of transparency in their initial reports on the C ovid-19 pandemic, which started in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.  Respiratory diseases have risen since Covid restrictions ended, so the government is promoting mask wearing and calling on local councils to open fever clinics and off er vaccines PHOTOGRAPH: SHUTTERSTOCK people to wear masks and also called on local authorities to focus on preventing the spread of illnesses in crowded places such as schools and nursing homes. The WHO this week formally requested that China provided information about a potentially worrying rise in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia in children . The emergence of new fl u strains or other viruses capable of triggering pandemics typically starts with undiagnosed clusters of respiratory illness. Both S ars and C ovid-19 were fi rst reported as unusual types of pneumonia. Chinese authorities this month blamed the increase in respiratory diseases on the lifting of lockdown restrictions. Other countries also had a rise in respiratory diseases such as RSV when Covid restrictions ended. The WHO said Chinese health offi cials had provided the data it requested during a teleconference. These fi gures showed an increase in hospital admissions of children linked to diseases including bacterial infection, RSV, influenza and common cold viruses since October. Chinese offi cials maintained that the surge in patients had not overloaded the country’s hospitals, according to the WHO. It is rare for the UN health agency to publicly ask for more detailed information from countries, as such requests are typically made internally. The WHO said it had requested further data from China via an international legal mechanism. According to internal accounts in China, the outbreaks have swamped some hospitals in northern China,

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • World 25 ▼ Noah Gonzales, 15, a Native American from Edgewood, New Mexico, gets ready to ride a bull PHOTOGRAPH: EDDIE MOORE/ZUMA/ALAMY Amanda Ulrich Banning, California J oya Taylor, an 18-yearold member of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians , can weave a horse at breakneck speed around a narrow course of metal drums. Those brief, adrenaline-fuelled moments of competition involved in a rodeo, when her horse is fl ying and a single wrong move could mean hitting a 55-gallon (208-litre) barrel, require Taylor and the animal to move as one entity. “I want both of us to be thinking the same thing,” she said. “I want to move with his body when he moves.” Taylor, who grew up on the Morongo Band of Mission Indians ’ reservation in California, is prepared for this. Before she could walk, she was on a horse. Being a child from the reservation was not always easy . “ You got other people who look at you diff erent because you’re Native American,” Taylor said. “But [at the rodeo], it’s like this is my one special thing. And everybody out here shares it with me.” take place throughout the year. And beyond the Native Americanspecifi c rodeos, Indigenous riders are competing in and winning top events at some of the country’s biggest competitions . Typical events range from team roping to bull and bronco riding. On one September morning, at the foot of the San Bernardino mountains in southern California, a group of riders readied their horses for one such event. The scene was familiar: country music was piped in over the speakers, competitors sported wide-brimmed cowboy hats and cattle shifted in their pens . But this rodeo was more than a standard cowboy aff air. Events were staged on the Morongo reservation , a nearly 16,000 hectare (40,000 acre) rural expanse about 20 miles from Palm Springs. Other details spoke to the long standing heritage of the occasion: bird songs, the ancient music that describes the history of the Cahuilla people, were performed by bird singers. Visitors stood in line to buy Indian tacos, a dish with traditional fry bread as its base and classic taco ingredients piled on top. Today, some Native American professional riders and ropers, such as Erich Rogers of the Navajo Nation, make a living by competing in the expansive rodeo circuit. But for others, like Taylor, the pursuit is more of a part-time passion that adds a sense of community and meaning to their lives. Rogers, a 37-year-old pro roper, said he fi rst got hooked on the sport aged 12, when he won his fi rst trophy saddle at an event. “I always wanted to be a professional cowboy,” Rogers said. “This is what I grew up doing.” For Brian Lugo, a Morongo tribal offi cial and rodeo president, his cowboy heritage stretches back generations. When the tribe’s reservation was fi rst formed in 1865, the government gave tribal members an option, he said: they could become ranchers or farmers and receive either 20 heifers or 20 fruit trees. “In an economically depressed area, you have to come up with an engine, and [the US government] thought farming and ranching would do the trick,” Lugo said from the sidelines of the tribe’s September rodeo. Still, tribal members faced overt racism and discrimination. Up until the last few decades, Morongo’s cattle were worth pennies on the dollar compared with cattle from other non-Native American ranches in the area, Lugo said. And around the time of the reservation’s founding, one 1850s law forced many Indigenous people into servitude if they were deemed not to be gainfully employed. Lugo said: “As it’s all coming to light it’s getting a little bit easier, but there’s still a diffi cult road ahead .” Rogers grew up on the Navajo Nation reservation in a remote corner of Arizona, where his house did not have running water or electricity until he was a teenager. Most of Rogers’ relatives were in the world of ranching or rodeo: his grandfather worked with livestock, his grandmother raised sheep and cows, and his father competed in local Native rodeos . As Rogers describes it, his childhood, spent hanging out with family and going to rodeo and livestock events, was “a kid’s dream ”. At 15 , Rogers began partnering in rodeos with a friend who lived off the reservation. Over the next few years they drove around the west, from Arizona to Montana, to compete in Native junior rodeos . Rogers now hits the nationwide rodeo circuit every season, criss crossing the country annually to compete in 75 to 80 professional rodeos, plus 15 or 20 Native rodeos. “All I do is drive,” he jokes. Even after making it to the highest levels of the sport, the next pay cheque is never guaranteed. “That’s the hard part about rodeoing,” Rogers said.“You got to do your best every time, and every chance you get to win, so you can get your next week’s bills paid for.” Rogers is adamant in telling youths from his community in Arizona – many of whom he has taught in free roping schools – to have faith in themselves. “Anybody can do it,” he said. “I did it. I didn’t have nothing, and came up, and got it done.” ‘I always wanted to be a cowboy’ Native American rodeos thrive as next generation takes reins ‘You got to do your best every chance you get to win so you can get your next week’s bills paid for’ Erich Rogers Native American rodeo cowboy ▲ A bull rider competes during a Navajo Nation rodeo PHOTOGRAPH: HEMIS/ALAMY A statue in Oregon of a Native American cowboy Across the western US, the world of Native American rodeo is alive and well . They have long been criticised by animal rights groups, who say livestock are put under stress and at risk of injury. But for many tribes the cowboy legacy stretches back generations. The Indian National Finals Rodeo recently held its annual championship in Las Vegas with thousands of attende rs. Smaller regional gatherings on reservations

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 26 World Ukrainian soldiers during combat training this month: arms made there are battle-tested, say their promoters PHOTOGRAPH: EFREM LUKATSKY/AP Shaun Walker Kyiv Oleksandr Kamyshin , the man with the job of reviving Ukraine’s domestic arms industry, has a dream . When the war is over, he believes, Ukraine should focus on arms production and export, turning itself into the “arsenal of the free world” . In a recent interview at his offi ce in central Kyiv, Kamyshin said: “For the next decades, defence should be the major industry in Ukraine. After the war it should be our core export product .” are facing a chronic shortage of weapons and ammunition . Before the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s arms industry was a murky sector of scandals and dubious deals, and weapons stocks were fairly limited . “We had a few Javelins [US antitank missiles] but it was mostly Soviet stocks,” said Kamyshin. A defence source said no ammunition was produced in Ukraine in 2021, the year before the invasion. Now, Kamyshin wants to revive the state sector, as well as coordinate the myriad private enterprises that have sprung up , from big companies to a few people tinkering in a shed. There are already more than 200 Ukrainian fi rms making drones, he said . “The volume of capabilities this year is three times bigger than last year,” Kamyshin said. “In 2021, 80% of the sector was state-run, now it’s about 50/50. In fi ve years it should be 80/20 in favour of private .” In the longer term, Ukrainian offi cials want to attract western companies to manufacture inside the country. Kamyshin hopes an arms summit in Washington, organised by the US national security council, will help with this pitch. The summit, on 6 and 7 December, will bring together Ukrainian offi cials and companies with western governments and arms manufacturers. “Normally to do something with big arms companies you need to invest $10bn plus, and then they might localise some production,” said Kamyshin . “But we can show how creative we can be. We take Soviet missiles and put them on western launchers. ” Mykhailo Podolyak , a Zelenskiy aide, said there was another incentive: “Our partners would get better quality weapons after they were tested out in real battle conditions, not just in experimental conditions .” As long as the war goes on, all production taking place in Ukraine would be for the needs of its army, but Kamyshin believes that afterwards , Ukraine can massproduce and export weapons, depriving Russia of many of its traditional export markets. “We can say to them : ‘We know how to switch from Soviet to Nato standards. Go with us and we’ll share the knowledge we learned . ’” Indeed, he claimed arms could become a mainstay of the economy . “We were branding ourselves as the breadbasket of Europe, now we want to rebrand as the arsenal of the free world,” he said. George Floyd’s killer ‘expected to survive’ prison stabbing Ramon Antonio Vargas The former Minneapolis police offi cer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd and was stabbed in prison by a fellow inmate on Friday is expected to survive the attack, offi cials have said. Updates about Derek Chauvin’s condition were provided by the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara , as well as a spokesperson for the state attorney general ’s offi ce on Saturday. O’Hara said Chauvin was in stable condition , according to reports from his federal law enforcement partners . The spokesperson for the attorney general’s offi ce said they had “heard that [Chauvin] is expected to survive ” . The US prisons bureau has only said that an unnamed person had been hospitali sed after being assaulted on Friday . Chauvin, 47, earned international notoriety after pressing a knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes outside a Minneapolis convenience store on 25 May 2020. Bystander video captured Floyd, 46, crying out “I can’t breathe” as Chauvin kneeled on his neck, ultimately killing him. Floyd’s death ignited worldwide street protests against police brutality and racism. Jurors in Minnesota later found Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder . He was serving his 22-year sentence in a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, when another inmate stabbed him . Prison staff performed life-saving measures on Chauvin before he was taken to a hospital . Additional reporting AP ▲ Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years for second-degree murder Sierra Leone imposes curfew after armed clashes in capital Agence France-Presse Freetown Armed clashes erupted in Sierra Leone’s capital yesterday after what the government said was an attack on a military armoury, as it imposed an immediate nationwide curfew. Witnesses said they had heard gunshots and explosions in the Wilberforce district of Freetown, where the armoury and a number of embassies are located. Other witnesses reported exchanges of fi re near a barracks in Murray Town district, home to the navy, and outside another military site in the capital. Video posted on social networks suggested numerous prisoners had escaped from the central jail. One man who was in a group fi lmed on the street by an AFP correspondent said they had escaped from the prison. The authorities said calm had been restored but made no further comments about the attackers’ motives . The Economic Community of West African States (E cowas) issued a statement underlining “its zero tolerance for unconstitutional change of government”. Echoing language used to condemn past coup attempts, E cowas spoke of its “utter disgust” over a “plot by certain individuals to acquire arms and disturb the peace and constitutional order in Sierra Leone”. Witness Susan Kargbo said that she had been woken “by a loud sound of heavy machine guns and bombs coming from the Wilberforce barracks around 4 .30am. I was shocked and ... the gunshots continued until this morning. It was like a war .” The government said those attempting to break into the armoury at a major army barracks had been repelled . “The public is assured that the government and our state security forces are in control,” the country’s information minister, Chernor Bah , said. “To enable the security forces to continue the process of apprehending the suspects, a nationwide curfew ‘Arsenal of free world’ Head of Ukraine’s arms industry argues for new role after end of war At the start of the war, Kamyshin w as the head of Ukraine’s state railway network, and won plaudits for the way his team managed eff orts to transport millions of refugees to the western borders in the fi rst days of the war. In March, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, appointed him minister of strategic industries. The title is a misnomer, said Kamyshin – for now, there should be only one strategic industry in the country. H e liaises with the army and defence ministry, as well as with Ukraine’s 70 state-run defence enterprises, to try to make sure the army gets what it needs. Generals have complained that even with western arms deliveries they is declared with immediate eff ect across the country .” Sierra Leone, an English-speaking country in west Africa, has been going through a political crisis since presidential and general elections in June . The country’s president, Julius Maada Bio , said the government would “continue to protect the peace and security of Sierra Leone against the forces that wish to truncate our much-cherished stability” . Bio was re-elected in June with just over 56% of the vote , narrowly avoiding a run off . International observers condemned inconsistencies and a lack of transparency in the count . ‘We can show how creative we can be. We take Soviet missiles and put them on western launchers’ Oleksandr Kamyshin

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • 27 Climate and energy costs ‘added £600 to food bills’ Sarah Butler British households’ food bills have been driven up by more than £600 over the past two years by the global climate emergency and soaring energy prices, says a report warning of further increases to come in 2024. Sounding the alarm about the impact of increasing extreme weather patterns on food production, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank said global heating was directly contributing to the cost of living crisis. According to the analysis done by researchers from the universities of Bournemouth, Exeter and Sheffi eld, more extreme or unseasonal weather accounted for a third of all food price infl ation in the UK this year. Combined with the impact of soaring energy prices – after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up gas, energy and fertiliser prices – British households had been hit by £605 in additional food costs in 2022 and 2023. While energy prices had fallen back this year, the ECIU warned that the impact from the climate emergency was increasing. Tom Lancaster, a land analyst at ECIU, said: “ Climate change is playing havoc with global food production, and this is inevitably feeding through to higher prices at the tills. Across 2022 and 2023 climate change alone added the equivalent of six weekly shops to the average household food bill.” The extra cost of food as a result of the climate crisis alone rose from £171 last year to £192 in 2023 . Offi cial fi gures show infl ation in food and drink prices peaked at an annual rate of almost 20% earlier this year, the highest level since the 1970s, amid disruption to food supplies from weather events and soaring energy costs for producers. Food price infl ation has fallen in recent months but remains at close to 10%. Prices are still near record highs after recent storms left hundreds of acres of farmland under water, hitting potato and other vegetable harvests . In 2022 drought aff ected the production of foodstuff s such as potatoes and onions in the UK ; an unusually wet harvest followed this year, then the hottest September on record. Heatwaves across the Mediterranean, India and South America this year all had a big impact on food production and prices. Staples, including sugar, rice and tomatoes, were aff ected by extreme weather, while olive oil prices rose by 50% after two years of drought and heatwaves in Spain and in other exporting countries in southern Europe. The situation could be worse next year given the El Niño weather system . Prof Wyn Morgan, of Sheffi eld University, one of the report’s authors, said: “ It is likely climate change will continue to fuel a cost of living crisis for the foreseeable future.” Anna Taylor, the Food Foundation ’s executive director, said the government needed to “think more seriously how households can be more resilient to price volatility” in light of the climate impact . She called for a revival of plans for a horticulture strategy raising fruit and vegetable production in the UK and reducing reliance on crops from southern Europe, a region increasingly vulnerable to extreme heat . Lancaster said the dependence of the current farming system on volatile oil, gas and fertiliser prices had created a perfect storm of extreme weather, high gas prices, and global instability to food price infl ation. A separate report from the Food Foundation warned that retailers and hospitality venues in Britain were not acting to create aff ordable, readily available and healthy food choices. It found healthy food was twice as costly as unhealthy food per calorie, and the cost of alternatives to meat and dairy products could also be high. Most main meals of many leading pub chains regularly exceeded 50% of the recommended daily intake for calories, saturated fat, salt and sugar, said the report. Just 1% of food advertising expenditure went towards fruit and vegetables compared with 9% for meat and dairy. Of buy-one-getone-free deals 21.5% were for meat and dairy compared with just 4.5% for fruit and vegetables. Women still overlooked for most important posts in boardrooms Amelia Hill Just one in fi ve commercial roles on the boards of Britain’s 350 largest listed companies are held by women, according to research that suggests fi rms have blind spots and operate at “various levels of consciousness ” when it comes to senior female staff . Many are failing to address important barriers that women face in the workplace, the report found, including operating a “woman tax ”, whereby women are given additional tasks alongside their day jobs, without placing the same expectation on their male peers. Produced by t he Pipeline , a business championing executive women, the Women Count report analyse d gender parity at executive committee level in the UK’s largest businesses. It found some progress , with a rise in the average percentage of women in executive committee roles in the FTSE 350 breaking through 30% for the fi rst time. However, it found that rather than securing commercial roles , in charge of profi t- and loss-making functions , women at board level were more likely to hold “functional” positions, such as HR or marketing. Finding that for every woman in a senior commercial role in the FTSE 100 there were three men, with a ratio of one in fi ve in the wider FTSE 350, the report warned progress to promote women to top boardroom jobs was being made at a “glacial” pace. It said only 13% of FTSE 100 companies have a female chief executive. Across the wider FTSE 350, the number has improved from 4% in 2019, but remains low at just 9%. Pavita Cooper, chair of the 30% Club UK , said: “We need the men at the top of these organisations to challenge the complacency and drive a sense of urgency levelling the playing fi eld for women .. “That should start with addressing the imbalance around gender stereotypes and caring responsibilities.” Lords report damns Bank of England over forecasts Richard Partington Economics correspondent The Bank of England’s reliance on “inadequate” forecasting models and a lack of intellectual diversity within its most senior ranks contributed to infl ation sticking at among the highest levels in decades, a Lords report has found. In a report critical of Threadneedle Street , the powerful Lords economic aff airs committee said the central bank had made “errors” in its handling of the infl ation shock triggered after the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It warned that mistakes at the Bank had fuelled a “dramatic” fall in public confi dence. Highlighting incorrect forecasts made in 2021 for infl ation to cool, it said possible reasons included a “perceived lack of intellectual diversity” at the central bank. It also said a steady expansion in the Bank’s remit to include a wider range of priorities – including economic growth and responding to the climate crisis – had risked jeopardising its ability to meet its primary objectives of managing infl ation and fi nancial stability. “Looking at the most recent period, it’s important to stress in our mind that all central banks have made errors in the handling of infl ation and seeing it as transitory – the Bank of England was not alone,” said the Conservative peer George Bridges. “While it is true the Bank wasn’t alone, that doesn’t mean to say there aren’t lessons to learn.” The central bank has argued it was diffi cult to forecast Russia’s war with Ukraine before the invasion. Energy prices were rising before the war, but then surged to among the highest levels on record after the February 2022 Russian invasion, driving UK infl ation to peak at a 41-year high of 11.1% by October 2022 The central bank has appointed Ben Bernanke , the former chair of the US Federal Reserve, to review its forecasting, after facing heavy criticism from MPs over its forecasting record. A spokesperson for the Bank said: “We’d like to thank the Lords [economic aff airs committee] for this report and will be giving the recommendations careful consideration. We’ll respond formally in due course.” 11.1% Rate of UK infl ation in October 2022, a 41-year high. Energy prices surged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine  Floods in Powys, Wales, in October after Storm Babet. Extreme weather feeds directly in to higher shop prices PHOTOGRAPH: BEN BIRCHALL/PA Blue-sky thinking London to New York, fuelled by cooking oil Page 28 ‘Climate change is playing havoc with global food production’ Tom Lancaster ECIU thinktank

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 28 Business Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent A Boeing 787 will set off tomorrow from London Heathrow for New York, shorn of paying passengers but with a payload of scientists, aviation leaders and politicians , and powered largely by used cooking oil – better known as sustainable aviation fuel . The UK government and aviation industry hope the Virgin Atla ntic fl ight, funded with £1m of tax payer’s money, will show that greener fl ying is possible and its 2050 “ jet zero” aspirations are more than hot air. The transport secretary, Mark Harper, who is himself preparing to board, has claimed the trip would be a historic moment paving the way to change the future of fl ight . O thers argue d it was a one-off stunt that the airline industry will struggle to emulate – and worse, one that could convince the public they can fl y without environmental damage . Undoubtedly, the fl ight demonstrates that the dial has turned on what is technically possible: the creation and use of a tank of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), synthesised from captured carbon and recycled oil. According to the producers, the carbon footprint of the fl ight is about 70% below that of conventional jet fuel, in a “lifecycle” analysis. The aviation industry now believes SAFs are the single biggest tool for bringing net carbon emissions down to zero – in its roadmap to 2050 that still allows for substantial growth in fl ying. That alarms environmental campaigners, who are sceptical about the merits of SAFs and have expressed disquiet over the language used by ministers about the fl ight. Announcing £53m this month to fund nine UK projects to create SAF in diff erent ways, from burning waste to converting CO2 and green hydrogen, the Department for Transport declared it a “milestone marker” ahead of the 100% SAF fl ight “making guilt-free fl ying a reality”. Even more hyperbolic – and plain wrong , said Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) – was the claim that passengers were now a “step closer to fl ying without CO2 emissions”. Not even the airline would argue that: a Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said the CO2 emissions out of the back of tomorrow’s plane would be identical, although it claim ed “net” emissions – calculated by the carbon saved in recycling oil – to be 70% less. Hewitt said the AEF fe lt “increasingly uneasy about the claims being made for SAF, even while the offi cial modelling gave it a much more modest role and leading scientists were expressing deep scepticism .” There remains a huge supply issue, she said, and proposed waste-based fuels cannot be scaled up sustainably . Even the term SAF is problematic; as the AEF puts it : “ The sustainability of alternative fuels needs to be assessed, not assumed.” The consensus of campaigners is that only e- kerosene – created with Virgin fl ight on used oil claimed to be future of ‘jet zero’ – in spite of risks ▲ Virgin Atlantic’s Boeing 787 test fl ight received £1m in government funding green hydrogen, capturing CO2 from the air, with a direct and defi nite rather than hypothetical reduction in carbon – looks a truly sustainable future fuel. However, despite the growth in wind and solar power and technological advances, aviation would need to lay claim to enormous amounts of renewable energy to create such fuel. At that point, said Matt Finch , UK policy manager of Transport & Environment, a clean transport campaign group : “The question isn’t can we make it but should we – what is the best use of renewable electricity?” While the transport secretary last week told an airline conference that there would be fi ve production plants under way by 2025 “to build Britain’s SAF base”, industry leaders said action was slow. Sean Doyle , British Airways’ chief executive , whose planned waste-tofuel plant has been under discussion for a decade, said: “We’re struggling to really just get the ball rolling and getting plants built. Maybe we need to look at what other jurisdictions and governments are doing, who are getting ahead of us in that regard.” Oriel Petry , head of public aff airs of Airbus UK, said there was “frustration” at the pace of change, adding: “The kind of ambition to have fi ve sites in the UK by 2025 looks quite challenging – maybe we don’t have the foundations to make that work.” 70% Net reduction in CO2 emissions claimed for plane using recycled oil despite identical emissions in fl ight

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • Business 29 A huge surge in building would be needed to prevent housing shortages being exacerbated by UK population growth from net migration PHOTOGRAPH: NATHAN STIRK/GETTY ▲ Rishi Sunak talking to Nissan workers last week after an autumn statement promising economic growth PHOTOGRAPH: IAN FORSYTH/GETTY Larry Elliott Rishi Sunak can’t catch a break. Barely was the ink dry on last week’s autumn statement than the news came out of record migration fi gures. The previous week, a bigger than expected fall in infl ation was followed within hours by the supreme court ruling against the government’s plan to process asylum seekers in Rwanda. No question, migration ranks alongside the record level of tax and the dismal state of the economy as one of the three big economic challenges facing the prime minister. The way the opinion polls are looking they will soon be problems for Keir Starmer to inherit. True economic liberals wonder what all the fuss is about as far as migration is concerned. For them, free movement of labour is of a piece with free movement of capital and free movement of goods: an essential component of a globalised economy in which the barriers to growth are removed. That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, the 2008 global fi nancial crisis exposed the dangers of allowing unfettered movements of money. Frictionless trade and long, integrated supply chains were all the rage until their vulnerabilities were laid bare by the Covid pandemic and its aftermath. It was only a matter of time before a backlash began against migration, and now there are signs of it across the west: in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, the US and France. In Britain, most voters accept that some inward migration is inevitable, even desirable, but they want it to be managed by the government. The Conservatives are indeed committed to doing that but in the four years since the party was elected on a manifesto promising to reduce the number of people coming to the UK, net migration has increased about threefold to a record 745,000 in 2022. If migration is not top of the public’s list of concerns at the moment, then that’s in part because there are more pressing problems – such as the cost of living – to worry about. The YouGov tracker poll shows that 60% of voters think immigration is too high, little changed on the 57% just before the 2019 election. Only 7% of people think it is too low. Some of the recent increase has been due to one-off factors – such as the granting of special visas to people from Hong Kong, Ukraine and Afghanistan – but even so, the 2022 total was equivalent to 2.5 times the highest level reached before the Brexit referendum. Legal migration dwarfs the number of asylum seekers coming across the Channel in small boats, and comes at a time when there is a chronic shortage of homes , sky-high rents and only a temporary pause in the longstanding tendency for house prices to rise. meeting one of the fi ve pledges Sunak made at the start of the year. But without net migration, the economy would be shrinking, not growing. The Offi ce for Budget Responsibility expects the economy – as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) – to grow by 0.6% in 2023. GDP a head – a better measure of living standards – will decline by 0.3%. In truth, there are push and pull factors behind the movements of people from country to country and from continent to continent. The main push factor is the desire to escape poverty, with access to modern media highlighting for poor people in Africa and Asia the much higher standards of living available in rich countries. The climate crisis, if left unaddressed , will only intensify the pressure. The west’s response has tended to involve erecting physical barriers to stop people arriving. It might be better advised to focus on the reasons why people leav e home in the fi rst place. That would mean making good on promises to help poor countries grow their economies, providing the resources urgently needed for global heating adaptation and mitigation, reducing trade barriers, and increasing aid rather than cutting it. The pull factors involve falling birthrates and ageing populations across much of the developed world. Immigration prevents populations from shrinking and provides people willing to fi ll labour-market vacancies. In Britain’s case, it has also locked the economy into a lowproductivity trap because the availability of cheap overseas labour has acted as a disincentive to businesses to invest in new kit. Kicking this habit would involve much higher investment in the NHS and social care, a comprehensive industrial strategy designed to boost skills, action to help adults with numeracy and literacy , and tailored programmes to increase the number of people seeking to make the transition from welfare to work. Since 2010, successive Tory governments have promised to reduce immigration but the economy has become addicted to it. Ending this dependency will not be easy. Cold turkey never is. Hooked on migration There’s no cheap fi x to help UK economy kick the habit Unless there is a massive – and improbabl e – surge in housebuilding, these economic problems will be exacerbated by boosting the population by almost the size of Leeds in a single year. Yet Jeremy Hunt’s tax plans are predicated on post-election cuts in day-to-day spending for Whitehall departments and less generous public investment. High levels of net migration require investment in infrastructure that neither the Conservatives nor Labour off er. That said, there are upsides for the prime minister from the record levels of migration. Many of the new arrivals are plugging staffi ng shortages in the NHS and social care. Without workers from India, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, waiting lists would be even longer. The same applies to employment levels which, even after record net migration in 2022, have yet to recover to pre-Covid levels. Labour shortages would be even more acute without the boost provided by foreign-born workers. Finally, there’s growth. Jeremy Hunt made a big deal in his autumn statement about how the economy would expand in 2023, thus There are upsides for Sunak from record net migration. The economy would be shrinking, not growing, without it

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 30 Weather Monday 27 November 2023 996 1000 1004 1008 1012 Moderate Slight Slight 1016 1016 1008 1024 1032 1024 1016 1008 1000 1000 1016 1024 1032 1008 1000 992 984 1000 1000 L L L L L L L L H H H H UK and Ireland Noon today Forecast Around the UK Atlantic front Around the world The constellation Taurus – the bull of heaven – was fi rst recorded by the Babylonians in about 1000 BC but other cultures may have associated this grouping of stars with a bull much earlier. At the Lascaux network of caves, in France, 17,000-year-old cave art shows what appears to be similar patterns to the stars of Taurus surrounded by a magnifi cent rendition of a bull. Taurus is a zodiacal constellation, meaning the sun’s path across the sky passes through its boundaries. Preceding Taurus on the zodiac is Aries, the ram, and following it is Cancer, the crab. The chart shows the view looking east from London at 8pm this week. The brightest star in Taurus is Aldebaran meaning “eye of the bull” in Arabic. It is an enormous red giant and shines with a n orange hue. Stars forming a V-shape mark the rest of the bull’s face. Stuart Clark @DrStuClark Sunny intervals Overcast/dull Mostly cloudy Sunny and heavy showers Sunny showers Thundery rain Thundery showers owers Temperature, ºC X Wind speed, mph Snow showers Rain Sleet Light snow Heavy snow Light sh Sunny Mist Fog Ice Windy Hazy 35C 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20 Cold front Warm front Occluded front Trough Low High Low High Tomorrow Wednesday 0 0 6 4 Algiers 21 Ams’dam 6 Athens 15 Auckland 19 B Aires 28 Bangkok 32 Barcelona 15 Basra 27 Beijing 8 Berlin 2 Bermuda 23 Brussels 7 Budapest 4 C’hagen 1 Cairo 21 Cape Town 26 Chicago -2 Corfu 13 Dakar 30 Dhaka 30 Dublin 7 Florence 11 Gibraltar 18 H Kong 27 Harare 31 Helsinki -10 Istanbul 6 Jo’burg 31 K Lumpur 31 K’mandu 22 Kabul 16 Kingston 32 Kolkata 29 L Angeles 22 Lagos 30 Lima 22 Lisbon 18 Madrid 13 Malaga 21 Melb’rne 19 Mexico C 22 Miami 29 Milan 6 Mombasa 31 Moscow 2 Mumbai 30 N Orleans 13 Nairobi 25 New Delhi 23 New York 10 Oslo -2 Paris 8 Perth 23 Prague 2 Reykjavik 7 Rio de J 26 Rome 16 Shanghai 19 Singapore 30 Stockh’m -5 Strasb’g 5 Sydney 26 Tel Aviv 20 Tenerife 24 Tokyo 15 Toronto 2 Vancouv’r 6 Vienna 5 Warsaw 0 Wash’ton 10 Well’ton 18 Zurich 5 Lows and highs Precipitation Air pollution Sun & Moon High tides Lighting up Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather ©2023 Belfast 1607 to 0818 Birm’ham 1600 to 0750 Brighton 1601 to 0736 Bristol 1609 to 0749 Carlisle 1552 to 0806 Cork 1630 to 0814 Dublin 1614 to 0812 Glasgow 1554 to 0818 Harlech 1608 to 0801 Inverness 1542 to 0827 London 1557 to 0738 M’chester 1558 to 0756 Newcastle 1547 to 0802 Norwich 1547 to 0739 Penzance 1626 to 0755 Source: © Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. Times are local UK times Aberdeen 0034 4.4m 1302 4.3m Avonmouth 0643 13.2m 1906 13.2m Barrow 1100 9.2m 2322 9.4m Belfast 1044 3.6m 2306 3.6m Cobh 0456 4.1m 1717 4.1m Cromer 0553 5.1m 1824 4.9m Dover 1041 6.7m 2305 6.6m Dublin 1120 4.1m 2332 4.1m Galway 0434 5.2m 1658 5.1m Greenock -- -- 1201 3.5m Harwich 1110 4.0m 2340 4.0m Holyhead 0953 5.6m 2212 5.7m Hull 0533 7.7m 1803 7.5m Leith 0148 5.6m 1416 5.6m Liverpool 1042 9.2m 2300 9.3m London Bridge 0110 6.8m 1323 7.1m Lossiemouth 1130 4.1m 2348 4.2m Milford Haven 0543 6.9m 1804 7.0m Newquay 0435 6.9m 1655 7.0m North Shields 0240 5.2m 1509 5.1m Oban 0506 3.9m 1732 4.1m Penzance 0409 5.5m 1628 5.5m Plymouth 0517 5.5m 1737 5.5m Portsmouth 1056 4.8m 2316 4.6m Southport 1010 8.9m 2235 9.0m Stornoway 0624 4.8m 1840 4.9m Weymouth 0636 1.3m 1857 1.2m Whitby 0317 5.6m 1545 5.5m Wick 1058 3.5m 2315 3.6m Workington 1102 8.2m 2322 8.3m Sun rises 0737 Sun sets 1557 Moon rises 1534 Moon sets 0757 Full Moon 27 Nov Starwatch Jupiter Uranus Menkar Algol Capella Mahasim Castor Pollux Aldebaran Pleiades Hamal C Orion Taurus Gemini Perseus Lynx Aries Belltrix Menkalinan Auriga Hassaleh E Carbon count Daily atmospheric CO2 readings from Mauna Loa, Hawaii (ppm): Latest 24 Nov 2023 421.47 Weekly average 19 Nov 2023 421.21 26 Nov 2022 418.38 26 Nov 2013 395.26 Pre-industrial base 280 Safe level 350 Source: NOAA-ESRL London 3 10 Manchester 0 6 Edinburgh 1 7 Belfast 1 8 Birmingham 1 7 Brighton 3 10 Bristol 4 10 Cardiff 3 10 Newcastle 0 6 Penzance 7 12 85% 85% 65% 40% 95% 85% 25% 25% 80% 60% Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • 31 Viewing fi gures How do we get people to watch Team GB, our most popular sports side? T hey were celebrating and swooning over Britain’s Olympic stars at the glitzy annual Team GB ball at the Savoy on Thursday. Just as they always do. And that experience will only be magnifi ed when the Paris Olympic Games rolls around in eight months’ time. Huge numbers of medals will be won. Gushing editorials will be written. Once more, viewing fi gures will be enormous. Would it surprise you to learn that a recent YouGov survey found that Team GB are the most popular sports team in the UK – ahead of England’s women footballers in second? Or that Team GB consistently ranks high on the list of the most cherished public institutions in the UK, behind the NHS and the emergency services? I suspect not. But I also can’t help thinking back to a conversation I had earlier at the Savoy with Alex Yee, Britain’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic triathlon gold and silver medallist. The 25-year-old was talking about his most special moment in Japan. It wasn’t the glory that most thrilled him, he insisted. It was hearing about kids doing “triathlons” in their own back garden the next day, with the aid of paddling pools, little bikes and their own imaginations, after watching him on TV. Then came the kicker. “I feel passionate about growing the sport,” he said. “So the fact there’s less BBC coverage is defi nitely a shame. World Triathlon now has a paywall to watch an event. But I want everyone to be able to see our sport, enjoy it and be inspired.” Triathlon is far from alone. Most sports under the Team GB banner are in the same leaky boat. For two weeks every four years we laud these athletes as superheroes. Then we forget about them. A good part of that is down to the dominance of football, a behemoth that sucks oxygen from every other sport in its path. It doesn’t help either when many Olympic sports have been slow to adapt to a changing media landscape, one where young people increasingly gravitate towards clips shared on social media. Even so, Yee hit on something I hear increasingly across British sporting circles: the growing frustration with the BBC for dialling down its coverage of Olympic sports – both online and on TV – outside the Games. And then, when it does have the rights for events, too often shoving them behind the red button. Why pick on the BBC? Because, unlike other British media outlets, it has public money and a public service remit. Not only can it aff ord to spread its love and aff ection beyond football and the other major sports, but it has an obligation too. One administrator I spoke to described it as “betrayal of the licence fee”, but even those who don’t go that far question why the BBC throws so much at the Olympics, but so little on the stories before  and afterwards. True, the BBC’s budgets are under pressure. As its outgoing director of sport, Barbara Slater, told MPs last week , TV rights for blue riband events such as the Six Nations have more than doubled in the past decade, yet the corporation’s budget has gone down by 30% in real terms. However, when it comes to many Olympic sports there is no such premium. No one should doubt the amplifying eff ects of live sport on the Beeb. Or how it acts as a signal to the print press and other media that this event matters. The Guardian always has a huge spike in its traffi c for the world athletics championships. Partly because people care but also because millions are watching it on the BBC . Indeed, given UK Sport gets around £100m of public and lottery money a year to fund our Olympic athletes and to inspire the nation, it is strange that politicians don’t want more bang for their buck. For once it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to put pressure on the corporation to cover more Olympic sports. In fact, would it be that outlandish for the BBC to consider having its own sports channel, especially in a world where the likes of Viaplay Xtra and SportyStuff HD exist on the Sky box? What is not to like about a combination of live sport and classic sporting footage from its deep archive? Perhaps the time for that was after London 2012. However, Mike Cavendish, British Triathlon’s highly regarded performance director, doesn’t think so. “We still have world-leading superstars across a whole bunch of diff erent events,” he says. “So the opportunity is still there.” Admittedly athletes also need to do more to promote themselves and their sports. Too many don’t realise they are not only in competition with their rivals but other forms of entertainment . It is not enough to play a good game; you have to talk one too. That’s what builds up interest and rivalries. However, like many Olympians, Yee’s talents undoubtedly deserve the widest possible audience. He certainly puts the work in, too: a typical Wednesday, for instance, starts at 6.30am for a 6.5km swim set, which takes around an hour and 45 minutes, then a four-hour bike ride followed by a 45-minute run. Oh, and a 75-minute gym session in the evening. No wonder Yee sleeps well at night. At the same time, though, he gets restless. He wants to inspire more people. But to do that, fi rst they have to see him in action . Sean Ingle For two weeks every four years we laud these athletes as heroes … then we forget about them ▲ Team GB triathletes Alex Yee (left) and Beth Potter – Yee says it is ‘defi nitely a shame’ there is less BBC coverage of his sport PATRICK KHACHFE/GETTY Rugby union Exeter end away - day rut with win at Newcastle Page 35  Football James at the double as Chelsea ease past Leicester Page 35 

••• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 Sport Football results The week ahead Today Football Premier League Fulham v Wolves (8pm) SSPL Racing Kempton RUK, Ludlow RUK Tomorrow Football (7.45pm unless stated) Champions League Group E Feyenoord v Atlético Madrid (8pm) TNT6; Lazio v Celtic (5.45pm) TNT1. Group F Milan v B Dortmund (8pm) TNT 3; PSG v Newcastle (8pm) TNT2. Group G Man City v RB Leipzig (8pm) TNT1; Young Boys v R S Belgrade (8pm) TNT7. Group H Barcelona v Porto (8pm) TNT4; Shakhtar Donetsk v Antwerp (5.45pm) TNT3 Sky Bet Championship Cardiff v West Brom; Coventry v Plymouth; Hull v Rotherham; Middlesbrough v Preston SSAr; QPR v Stoke; Watford v Norwich (8pm) SSF Sky Bet League One Barnsley v Wycombe; Blackpool v Northampton; Bristol Rovers v Leyton Orient; Burton Albionv Portsmouth; Cambridge Utd v Lincoln City; Charlton v Cheltenham; Exeter v Shrewsbury; Oxford Utd v Bolton; Port Vale v Derby; Reading v Carlisle (8pm); Stevenage v Peterborough Utd; Wigan v Fleetwood Sky Bet League Two Accrington Stanley v Swindon; Barrow v Walsall; Doncaster v Colchester; Forest Green v Bradford City; Gillingham v AFC Wimbledon; Harrogate v Wrexham; Mansfield v Tranmere; MK Dons v Grimsby; Morecambe v Newport County; Notts County v Crawley; Stockport v Salford City; Sutton v Crewe Cinch Scottish Premiership Ross County v St Mirren Cinch Scottish Championship Dunfermline v Arbroath Cinch Scottish League One Annan v Hamilton; Montrose v Falkirk Cricket First Test (first day of five) Bangladesh v New Zealand, Sylhet (3.30am) Third T20 international India v Australia, Guwahati (1.30pm) TNT2 Tennis Next Gen ATP Finals Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (to Sat) Prime Racing Sedgefield, Southwell Wednesday Football (7.45pm unless stated) Champions League Group A BMunich v FC Copenhagen (8pm) TNT4; Galatasaray v Man Utd (5.45pm) TNT1. Group B Arsenal v Lens (8pm) TNT2; Sevilla v PSV (5.45pm) TNT3. Group C Braga v Union Berlin (8pm) TNT7; Real Madrid v Napoli (8pm) TNT3. Group D Benfica v Inter (8pm) TNT6; Real Sociedad v RB Salzburg (8pm) TNT8 Women’s Nations League Group C4 Armenia v Israel (11am) Sky Bet Championship Blackburn v Birmingham; Ipswich v Millwall (8pm) SSF; Leeds v Swansea; Sheff Wed v Leicester; Southampton v Bristol City; Sunderland v Huddersfield Racing Hereford, Kelso RUK, Wetherby RUK Thursday Football (7.45pm unless stated) Europa League Group A Backa Topola v West Ham (5.45pm) TNT1; Freiburg v Olympia kos (5.45pm) TNT6. Group B AEK Athens v Brighton (5.45pm) TNT2; Marseille v Ajax (8pm) TNT4. Group C Rangers v Aris Limassol (8pm) TNT3; Sparta Prague v Real Betis (5.45pm) TNT4. Group D Atalanta v Sporting (5.45pm) TNT7; Sturm Graz v Rakow (5.45pm). Group E Liverpool v Lask (8pm) TNT1; Toulouse v Union St Gilloise (8pm) TNT6. Group F Maccabi Haifa v Rennes (5.45pm) TNT8; Villarreal v Panathinaikos (8pm) TNT7. Group G Servette v Roma (8pm) TNT5; Sheriff v Slavia Prague (8pm) TNT10. Group H Häcken v Bayer Leverkusen (8pm); Molde v Karabakh (8pm) Europa Conference League Group A KÍ Klaksvík v Slovan Bratislava (5.45pm) TNT9; Ljubljana v Lille (5.45pm) TNT10 Group B Breidablik v Maccabi Tel-Aviv (8pm); Gent v Zorya (5.45pm). Group C Astana v Dinamo Zagreb (3.30pm) TNT4; Ballkani v Plzen (5.45pm). Group D Besiktas v Club Brugge (5.45pm); Bodø/Glimt v Lugano (5.45pm). Group E AZ Alkmaar v Zrinjski Mostar (5.45pm); Aston Villa v Legia Warsaw (8pm) TNT2. Group F Cukaricki v Ferencvaros (8pm); Fiorentina v Genk (8pm) TNT8. Group G Eintract Frankfurt v Paok (8pm); HJK v Aberdeen (5.45pm) TNT3. Group H Nordsjælland v Fenerbahce (8pm) TNT 9; Spartak Trnava v Ludogorets (8pm) Women’s Nations League Group B2 Finland v Romania (4.45pm) Golf ISPS Handa Australian Open Sydney (to Sun) SSME Investec South African Open Johannesburg (to Sun) SSG Hero World Challenge Albany, Bahamas (to Sun) SSG Racing Lingfield, Musselburgh RUK, Taunton RUK Friday Football (7.45pm unless stated) Women’s Nations League Group A1 Belgium v Scotland (7.30pm) BBCi; England v Netherlands ITV1. Group A2 France v Austria (8.10pm); Norway v Portugal (6pm). Group A3 Germany v Denmark (7.30pm); Wales v Iceland (7.15pm). Group A4 Spain v Italy (8.30pm); Switzerland v Sweden (7pm). Group B1 Albania v Northern Ireland (4pm); Rep of Ireland v Hungary (7.30pm). Group B2 Croatia v Slovakia (5pm). Group B3 Greece v Serbia (3pm); Ukraine v Poland (5pm. Group B4 Belarus v Czech Rep (7pm); Slovenia v Bosnia & Herzegovina (5pm). Group C1 Latvia v Andorra (4pm); Moldova v Malta (2pm). Group C2 Georgia v Luxembourg (1pm); Lithuania v Turkey (3pm). Group C3 Cyprus v Azerbaijan (5pm); Montenegro v Faroe Islands (noon). Group C4 Kazakhstan v Estonia (2pm). Group C5 Kosovo v Bulgaria (4pm) Emirates FA Cup Second round Notts County v Shrewsbury; York v Wigan BBC2 Sky Bet Championship Preston v QPR (8pm) SSF Rugby union Gallagher Premiership Harlequins v Sale (7.45pm) TNT1 United Championship Munster v Glasgow Warriors (7.35pm) TG4 Allianz Women’s Premiership Bristol v Gloucester-Hartpury (12.30pm) Cricket Fourth T20 international India v Australia, Nagpur (1.30pm) Racing Doncaster, Musselburgh Racing UK, Newbury ITV4/Racing UK Saturday Football (3pm unless stated) Women’s Nations League Group C4 Israel v Armenia (11am) Emirates FA Cup Second round Alfreton v Walsall (12.30pm) BBC1; Blackpool v Forest Green; Bolton v Harrogate; Cambridge Utd v Fleetwood; Crewe v Bristol Rovers; Gillingham v Charlton; Maidstone v Barrow; Newport County v Barnet; Oxford Utd v Grimsby; Peterborough v Doncaster; Stevenage v Port Vale; Sutton v Barnsley; Wycombe v Morecambe Premier League Arsenal v Wolves; Brentford v Luton; Burnley v Sheffield Utd; Newcastle v Man Utd (8pm) TNTS1; Nottingham Forest v Everton (5.30pm) SSPL Sky Bet Championship Birmingham v Rotherham; Hull v Watford; Ipswich v Coventry; Leeds v Middlesbrough; Millwall v Sunderland; Plymouth v Stoke; Sheffield Wed v Blackburn; Southampton v Cardiff; Swansea v Huddersfield; West Brom v Leicester (12.30pm) SSF Sky Bet League One Northampton v Portsmouth Vanarama National League Altrincham v Dorking; Bromley v Rochdale; Fylde v Hartlepool; Halifax v Solihull Moors; Kidderminster v Ebbsfleet; Oldham v Boreham Wood; Oxford City v Maidenhead; Southend v Wealdstone; Woking v Gateshead Cinch Scottish Premiership Kilmarnock v Hearts; Livingston v Ross County; Motherwell v Dundee Cinch Scottish Championship Ayr v Arbroath; Dunfermline v Queen’s Park; Inverness CT v Raith; Morton v Dundee Utd; Partick v Airdrieonians Cinch Scottish League One Alloa v Annan ; Falkirk v Cove Rangers; Hamilton v Queen of the South; Kelty Hearts v Edinburgh City; Stirling Albion v Montrose Cinch Scottish League Two East Fife v Spartans; Elgin v Clyde; Forfar v Stranraer; Peterhead v Dumbarton; Stenhousemuir v Bonnyrigg Rose Rugby union Gallagher Premiership Bath v Exeter (3pm) TNT2; Bristol v Gloucester (3.05pm) TNT1; Saracens v Northampton (5.30pm) TNT1 United Championship Benetton v Ospreys (7.35pm) S4C; Bulls v Sharks (1pm) TG4; Cardiffv Scarlets (3pm) S4C/TG4; Connacht v Leinster (7.35pm); Lions v Dragons (3.05pm); Stormers v Zebre (5.15pm); Ulster v Edinburgh (5.15pm) Racing Bangor, Doncaster, Newbury ITV4/ RUK, Newcastle Sunday Football (3pm unless stated) Emirates FA Cup Second round Aldershot v Stockport (2pm); Chesterfield v Leyton Orient (2pm); Eastleigh v Reading (1.30pm) ITV1; Wrexham v Yeovil (3.45pm) ITVX Premier League Bournemouth v Aston Villa (2pm); Chelsea v Brighton (2pm); Liverpool v Fulham (2pm); Man City v Tottenham (4.30pm) SSPL; West Ham v Crystal Palace (2pm) SSPL Sky Bet Championship Bristol City v Norwich (1.30pm) cinch Scottish Premiership Hibernian v Aberdeen; Rangers v St Mirren; St Johnstone v Celtic (noon) SSF Rugby union Gallagher Premiership Leicester v Newcastle (3pm) TNT2 Allianz Women’s Premiership Leicester v L’borough (5.30pm) TNT2 Cricket First one-day international West Indies v England, North Sound (1.30pm) TNT1 Fifth T20 international India v Australia, Hyderabad (1.30pm) TNT2 Racing Carlisle RUK, Leicester RUK The main event Manchester City v Tottenham 4.30pm, Sunday, Sky Sports PL Pep Guardiola’s City host a Tottenham side hoping to end a run of three consecutive defeats in the top fl ight Chloe Kelly will be on the hunt for goals in the Nations League 32 Home Away P W D L F A W D L F A GD Pts Form 1 Arsenal 13 5 2 0 18 7 4 1 1 9 3 +17 30 WDWLWW 2 Manchester City 13 5 1 0 17 4 4 1 2 16 9 +20 29 LWWWDD 3 Liverpool 13 6 0 0 17 2 2 4 1 11 9 +17 28 DWWDWD 4 Aston Villa 13 6 0 0 23 5 3 1 3 8 13 +13 28 DWWLWW 5 Tottenham 13 4 0 2 10 8 4 2 1 15 9 +8 26 WWWLLL 6 Manchester United 13 4 0 3 8 10 4 0 2 8 6 0 24 WWLWWW 7 Newcastle 13 6 0 1 18 4 1 2 3 13 10 +17 23 DWDWLW 8 Brighton 13 3 3 1 15 10 3 1 2 13 13 +5 22 DLDDDW 9 West Ham 13 3 1 2 11 9 3 1 3 12 14 0 20 DLLLWW 10 Chelsea 13 1 3 3 10 11 3 1 2 12 9 +2 16 WDLDWL 11 Brentford 13 2 3 2 12 11 2 1 3 7 7 +1 16 LWWWLL 12 Wolve s 12 2 2 2 9 12 2 1 3 7 8 -4 15 WDWDLW 13 Crystal Palace 13 1 2 3 6 8 3 1 3 7 10 -5 15 DLLWLL 14 Nottingham Forest 13 2 3 1 10 8 1 1 5 6 13 -5 13 DDLWLL 15 Fulham 12 2 0 3 4 7 1 3 3 6 13 -10 12 LWLDLL 16 Bournemouth 13 2 2 3 6 10 1 1 4 8 18 -14 12 LLWLWW 17 Luton 13 1 2 3 6 8 1 1 5 6 15 -11 9 LDLDLW 18 Sheffield United 13 1 1 5 7 19 0 1 5 4 15 -23 5 LLLWDL 19 Everton* 13 1 1 5 5 9 3 1 2 9 11 -6 4 WLWDWL 20 Burnley 13 0 0 7 5 20 1 1 4 5 12 -22 4 LLLLLL *Everton deducted 10pts CINCH PREMIERSHIP P W D L F A GD Pts Celtic 14 11 3 0 35 8 +27 36 Rangers 13 9 1 3 27 7 +20 28 St Mirren 13 6 4 3 19 18 +1 22 Hearts 13 6 2 5 13 12 +1 20 Hibernian 14 4 6 4 20 21 -1 18 Kilmarnock 14 4 5 5 15 15 0 17 Dundee 13 4 5 4 15 17 -2 17 Motherwell 14 3 4 7 16 22 -6 13 Aberdeen 12 3 4 5 15 21 -6 13 Ross County 13 2 5 6 11 21 -10 11 St Johnstone 13 2 5 6 8 19 -11 11 Livingston 14 2 4 8 9 22 -13 10 Aberdeen (1) 1 Rangers (0) 1 Miovski 11 Tavernier 90+4pen 16,911 Celtic (0) 1 Motherwell (0) 1 Turnbull 86pen Obika 90 58,140 Dundee (0) 1 Hibernian (1) 2 Beck 85 Tavares 16 6,652 Miller 58 Hearts (0) 1 St Johnstone (0) 0 Shankland 61 18,678 Ross County (0) 0 Kilmarnock (0) 0 4,013 St Mirren (1) 1 Livingston (0) 0 Kelly 37og Premier League WSL and Europe Scotland BARCLAYS WOMEN’S SUPER LEAGUE P W D L F A GD Pts Chelsea 8 7 1 0 28 7 +21 22 Arsenal 8 6 1 1 20 8 +12 19 Manchester City 8 5 1 2 20 5 +15 16 Manchester Utd 8 4 3 1 20 9 +11 15 Liverpool 8 4 2 2 12 9 +3 14 Tottenham 8 3 3 2 14 16 -2 12 Leicester 8 2 2 4 12 18 -6 8 Everton 8 2 2 4 7 15 -8 8 Brighton 8 2 1 5 8 19 -11 7 Aston Villa 8 2 0 6 10 20 -10 6 West Ham 8 1 1 6 7 19 -12 4 Bristol City 8 1 1 6 9 22 -13 4 Arsenal (3) 3 West Ham (0) 0 Maanum 2 Mead 18 41 3,686 Aston Villa (0) 1 Everton (0) 2 Daly 55 Patten 54og, 4,203 Björn 74pen Bristol City (0) 0 Manchester Utd (0) 2 14,138 Miyazawa 50, Parris 55 Chelsea (3) 5 Leicester City (2) 2 James 2 58, Nevin 5og Rantala 26, Tierney 44 Kerr 40, Beever-Jones 88 Liverpool (2) 4 Brighton (0) 0 Bonner 27, Van de Sanden 43 Holland 63, Haug 90+2 Manchester City (3) 7 Tottenham (0) 0 Shaw 23 32 38 Hemp 48, Roord 53 Coombs 59 90+6 WOMEN’S FA CUP Second round Billericay 2 Dulwich 1; Burnley 9 Alnwick 1; Chatham 5 Wimbledon 4; Cheltenham 3 Exeter 2; Chester-Le-Street 3 Spennymoor 2; Chorley 0 Newcastle 5; Darwen 1 Leeds 1 (aet; Darwen won 4-3 on penalties); Derby 4 Loughborough 1; Ebbsfleet 0 Portsmouth 7; Enfield 3 Luton 5; FC United 2 Hull 3; Haringey 1 Moneyfields 3; Ipswich 8 Sutton Coldfield 0; Leafield 1 Coundon Court 2; Liverpool Feds 0 Durham 1; Millwall 2 Bromley 0; Norwich 1 LOWLAND LEAGUE P W D L F A GD Pts East Kilbride 16 13 2 1 50 18 +32 41 Hearts B 18 10 6 2 47 22 +25 36 Cumbernauld Colts 18 11 3 4 38 20 +18 36 Bo’ness Utd 16 10 1 5 34 26 +8 31 Tranent 14 9 3 2 36 16 +20 30 Civil Service Strollers 16 8 2 6 25 24 +1 26 Stirling Univ 16 7 3 6 23 22 +1 24 Linlithgow Rose 15 6 5 4 33 22 +11 23 Broomhill 17 7 2 8 28 25 +3 23 Celtic B 15 7 1 7 29 18 +11 22 Gala Fairydean 17 6 3 8 26 36 -10 21 Albion Rovers 13 5 4 4 17 13 +4 19 Cowdenbeath 16 4 7 5 27 26 +1 19 Caledonian Braves 18 5 4 9 21 26 -5 19 Berwick 17 4 5 8 16 26 -10 17 East Stirlingshire 17 3 4 10 24 32 -8 13 Gretna 17 2 0 15 12 67 -55 6 Edinburgh Univ 16 1 1 14 18 65 -47 4 Cumbernauld Colts 2 Caledonian Braves 0; East Kilbride 2 Hearts B 4 HIGHLAND LEAGUE P W D L F A GD Pts Brechin 13 11 1 1 33 6 +27 34 Banks O’Dee 15 9 5 1 38 13 +25 32 Nairn County 15 10 0 5 28 23 +5 30 Formartine Utd 14 9 2 3 33 16 +17 29 Buckie Thistle 11 9 1 1 33 10 +23 28 Huntly 14 8 2 4 40 22 +18 26 Fraserburgh 13 8 1 4 34 18 +16 25 Rothes 15 8 1 6 20 21 -1 25 Brora 11 7 3 1 20 10 +10 24 Turriff Utd 15 8 0 7 35 29 +6 24 Lossiemouth 13 4 2 7 17 23 -6 14 Inverurie Locos 15 4 1 10 18 31 -13 13 Forres Mechanics 14 3 3 8 17 23 -6 12 Wick Academy 13 3 2 8 17 33 -16 11 Deveronvale 15 2 4 9 18 41 -23 10 Keith 12 2 2 8 15 21 -6 8 Clachnacuddin 16 0 5 11 18 54 -36 5 Strathspey Thistle 14 1 1 12 17 57 -40 4 Strathspey Thistle 1 Turriff 8; Brechin City 0 Fraserburgh 1; Forres Mechanics 0 Rothes 1; Huntly 1 Banks O’Dee 3; Inverurie Loco Works 3 Deveronvale 0; Lossiemouth 5 Clachnacuddin 3; Wick Academy 2 Nairn County 3 SCOTTISH GAS SCOTTISH CUP Third round Albion Rovers 0 Bonnyrigg Rose 1; Annan Athletic 4 Dumbarton 5 (aet); Brora 1 Pollok 0 (aet); Broxburn Athletic 2 Buckie Thistle 2 (aet; Buckie Thistle won 5-4 on pens); Cumnock 0 Broomhill 3; Dunbar Utd 1 Alloa 2; Falkirk 3 Formartine Utd 0; Hamilton 0 Kelty Hearts 2; Inverness CT 2 Cowdenbeath 0; Montrose 3 Edinburgh City 0; Morton 4 Boness Utd 0; Partick 3 Queen’s Park 0; Peterhead 1 Ayr 2 (aet); Queen of the South 2 Dundee Utd 2 (aet; Queen of the South won 4-3 on pens); Spartans 2 Arbroath 1; Stirling Albion 0 Cove Rangers 2; Stranraer 0 Airdrieonians 1; Tranent 0 Forfar 1. Friday Clyde 2 Jeanfield Swifts 0; Dunfermline 0 Raith 3 Boldmere St Michaels 2; Nottingham Forest 3 Sporting Khalsa 2; Oxford Utd 2 Dartford 0; Plymouth 4 Stoneham 2; Rugby 7 Solihull 1; Stoke 1 Stockport 0; Swindon 1 Bournemouth 2; West Brom 3 Needham Market 0 (aet); Wolves 7 Peterborough 0; Worcester 0 MK Dons 3 UEFA WOMEN’S NATIONS LEAGUE Group C4 Israel 0 Kazakhstan 0 LIGUE 1 (top 10) P W D L F A GD Pts Paris St-Germain 13 9 3 1 34 11 +23 30 Nice 13 8 5 0 14 4 +10 29 Monaco 13 7 3 3 27 19 +8 24 Lille 13 6 5 2 17 11 +6 23 Reims 13 6 2 5 18 18 0 20 Lens 13 5 4 4 16 13 +3 19 Brest 12 5 3 4 14 14 0 18 Le Havre 13 3 7 3 12 13 -1 16 Metz 13 4 4 5 15 20 -5 16 Rennes 13 3 6 4 19 17 2 15 Clermont 0 Lens 3; Lorient 2 Metz 3; Lyon 0 Lille 2; Montpellier 1 Brest 3; Nantes 0 Le Havre 0; Nice 1 Toulouse 0; Rennes 3 Reims 1; Strasbourg 1 Marseille 1 Friday Paris St-Germain 5 Monaco 2 BUNDESLIGA (top 10) P W D L F A GD Pts Bayer Leverkusen 12 11 1 0 37 10 +27 34 Bayern Munich 12 10 2 0 43 9 +34 32 Stuttgart 12 9 0 3 31 15 +16 27 Borussia Dortmund 12 7 3 2 25 19 +6 24 RB Leipzig 12 7 2 3 29 12 +17 23 Hoffenheim 12 6 2 4 24 21 +3 20 Eintracht Frankfurt 12 4 6 2 18 13 +5 18 Wolfsburg 12 5 1 6 17 21 -4 16 Freiburg 12 4 3 5 15 23 -8 15 Augsburg 12 3 5 4 21 24 -3 14 Borussia Dortmund 4 Borussia Mönchecngladbach 2; Eintracht Frankfurt 1 Stuttgart 2; Freiburg 1 Darmstadt 1; Heidenheim 0 Bochum 0; Hoffenheim 1 Mainz 1; Union Berlin 1 Augsburg 1; Werder Bremen 0 Bayer Leverkusen 3; Wolfsburg 2 RB Leipzig 1. Friday Cologne 0 Bayern Munich 1 SERIE A (top 10) P W D L F A GD Pts Internazionale 13 10 2 1 30 7 +23 32 Juventus 13 9 3 1 20 8 +12 30 Milan 13 8 2 3 21 14 +7 26 Napoli 13 7 3 3 26 14 +12 24 Roma 13 6 3 4 25 15 +10 21 Atalanta 13 6 2 5 21 13 +8 20 Fiorentina 13 6 2 5 20 17 +3 20 Bologna 12 4 6 2 13 10 +3 18 Monza 13 4 6 3 14 12 +2 18 Frosinone 13 5 3 5 19 21 -2 18 Atalanta 1 Napoli 2; Cagliari 1 Monza 1; Empoli 3 Sassuolo 4; Frosinone 2 Genoa 1;Juventus 1 Internazionale 1; Milan 1 Fiorentina 0; Roma 3 Udinese 1; Salernitana 2 Lazio 1 LA LIGA (top 110) P W D L F A GD Pts Real Madrid 14 11 2 1 31 9 +21 35 Girona 13 11 1 1 31 16 +15 34 Atlético Madrid 13 10 1 2 30 12 +18 31 Barcelona 14 9 4 1 27 14 +13 31 Real Sociedad 14 7 4 3 25 17 +8 25 Athletic Bilbao 13 7 3 3 25 17 +8 24 Real Betis 14 6 6 2 18 16 +2 24 Getafe 14 4 7 3 17 18 -1 19 Valencia 14 5 4 5 16 18 -2 19 Rayo Vallecano 14 4 7 3 16 18 -2 19 Atlético Madrid 1 Mallorca 0; Cádiz 0 Real Madrid 3; Getafe 2 Almería 1; Rayo Vallecano 1 Barcelona 1; Real Betis1 Las Palmas 0; Real Sociedad 2 Sevilla 1; Valencia 0 Celta Vigo 0; Villarreal 3 Osasuna 1 Friday Alavés 3 Granada 1 PRO LEAGUE Anderlecht 2 RWD Molenbeek 1; Cercle Brugge 2 Eupen 0; Charleroi 3 Westerlo 2; Gent 1 Union St-Gilloise 1; Kortrijk 0 Mechelen 3; OU Leuven 0 Club Brugge 1; Standard Liège 1 Genk 0. Friday St-Truiden 1 Royal Antwerp 1 EREDIVISIE Ajax 5 Vitesse 0; Almere 0 Heracles 5; AZ 3 Volendam 0; Excelsior 2 Feyenoord 4; NEC 1 Go Ahead Eagles 1; PEC Zwolle 1 RKC Waalwijk 2 Heerenveen 3 Fortuna Sittard 0; Sparta Rotterdam 1 Utrecht 2; Twente 0 PSV Eindhoven 3 Brentford (0) 0 Arsenal (0) 1 17,201 Havertz 89 Burnley (0) 1 West Ham (0) 2 Rodriguez 49pen O’Shea 86og, Soucek 90+1 21,319 Everton (0) 0 Manchester United (1) 3 Garnacho 3, Rashford 56pen Martial 75 Luton (0) 2 Crystal Palace (0) 1 Mengi 72, Brown 83 Olise 74 11,029 Manchester City (1) 1 Liverpool (0) 1 Haaland 27 Alexander-Arnold 80 53,289 Newcastle (1) 4 Chelsea (1) 1 Isak 13, Lascelles 60 Sterling 23 Joelinton 61, Gordon 83 52,227 Nottingham Forest (1) 2 Brighton (2) 3 Elanga 3 Ferguson 26 Gibbs-White 76pen João Pedro 45+4, 58pen 29,404 Sheffield United (0) 1 Bournemouth (2) 3 McBurnie 90+7 Tavernier 12, 51 30,208 Kluivert 45+3 Tottenham (1) 1 Aston Villa (1) 2 Lo Celso 22 P Torres 45+7, Watkins 61 61,679 LEADING GOALSCORERS 14 Haaland (Manchester City) 10 Salah (Liverpool) 8 Son (Tottenham); Bowen (West Ham)

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian ••• P W D L F A GD Pts Bolton 17 12 2 3 37 18 +19 38 Portsmouth 17 10 6 1 27 16 +11 36 Oxford Utd 17 11 2 4 31 18 +13 35 Stevenage 19 10 5 4 27 17 +10 35 Peterborough Utd 18 10 4 4 35 18 +17 34 Derby 17 9 3 5 30 16 +14 30 Blackpool 19 8 6 5 32 23 +9 30 Barnsley 17 8 4 5 33 20 +13 28 Lincoln City 19 7 6 6 23 20 +3 27 Charlton 17 6 5 6 28 24 +4 23 Bristol Rovers 17 6 5 6 23 22 +1 23 Shrewsbury 19 7 2 10 12 27 -15 23 Wycombe 17 6 4 7 23 26 -3 22 Leyton Orient 18 5 6 7 17 23 -6 21 Northampton 17 6 2 9 19 22 -3 20 Cambridge Utd 18 5 5 8 14 22 -8 20 Burton Albion 18 5 5 8 16 25 -9 20 Wigan 18 8 3 7 27 23 +4 19 Port Vale 17 5 4 8 14 26 -12 19 Exeter 17 5 2 10 12 29 -17 17 Fleetwood 17 4 4 9 18 28 -10 16 Carlisle 18 3 6 9 14 21 -7 15 Cheltenham 17 3 3 11 9 25 -16 12 Reading 17 4 2 11 17 29 -12 10 Bolton (2) 7 Exeter (0) 0 Iredale 34, Adeboyejo 43 Maghoma 55, Charles 63 74 Dempsey 87, N’Lundulu 90+2 19,193 Carlisle (0) 1 Charlton (0) 1 Lavelle 62 Blackett-Taylor 54 10,477 Cheltenham (1) 2 Oxford Utd (0) 0 Street 34, Goodwin 76 Derby (0) 2 Bristol Rovers (0) 1 Hunt 66og Martin 87 Méndez-Laing 90 26,623 Fleetwood (0) 0 Stevenage (1) 3 Reid 8, Thompson 56 2,771 List 90+5 Leyton Orient (1) 1 Wigan (1) 1 Forde 18 Humphrys 45+1 8,517 Lincoln City (1) 2 Barnsley (0) 2 Mândroiu 5pen Cotter 68 Eyoma 88 McAtee 72 9,173 Northampton (0) 2 Cambridge Utd (0) 1 Bowie 49 Ahadme 77 Hoskins 55 6,929 Peterborough Utd (2) 4 Burton Albion (0) 0 Randall 6, Mason-Clark 44 Stockton 62og, Poku 66 Portsmouth (0) 0 Blackpool (1) 4 Dale 9, Beesley 56 18,697 Hamilton 74, Morgan 87 Shrewsbury (1) 2 Port Vale (0) 1 Mata 28 Garrity 57 Udoh 48 7,429 Wycombe (1) 1 Reading (2) 2 Phillips 32 Smith 30 7,073 Wing 41 LEADING GOALSCORERS 14 May (Charlton); Reid (Stevenage). 13 Charles (Bolton). 11 Cole (Barnsley). 10 Bishop (Portsmouth); Hoskins (Northampton); Rhodes (Blackpool). P W D L F A GD Pts Stockport 19 13 2 4 40 20 +20 41 Wrexham 19 10 6 3 40 29 +11 36 Mansfield 18 9 8 1 32 15 +17 35 Crewe 18 10 5 3 39 27 +12 35 Barrow 19 9 7 3 25 16 +9 34 Notts County 19 10 3 6 39 35 +4 33 Accrington Stanley 19 9 2 8 27 25 +2 29 AFC Wimbledon 18 7 7 4 29 21 +8 28 Gillingham 19 9 1 9 18 26 -8 28 Swindon 19 7 6 6 39 33 +6 27 Crawley 18 8 3 7 29 30 -1 27 Morecambe 17 8 3 6 25 26 -1 27 MK Dons 18 7 5 6 30 26 +4 26 Bradford City 19 6 5 8 21 27 -6 23 Harrogate 19 7 2 10 18 25 -7 23 Newport County 19 6 4 9 28 35 -7 22 Salford City 19 6 3 10 30 33 -3 21 Walsall 18 5 6 7 24 29 -5 21 Doncaster 18 6 2 10 22 30 -8 20 Colchester 19 6 2 11 27 37 -10 20 Grimsby 19 4 7 8 26 31 -5 19 Tranmere 19 5 2 12 25 31 -6 17 Forest Green 18 4 3 11 20 32 -12 15 Sutton Utd 19 3 4 12 25 39 -14 13 AFC Wimbledon (2) 4 Notts County (0) 2 Reeves 29pen 86pen Langstaff 62, Nemane 67 Al Hamadi 41 90+2 8,479 Bradford City (0) 1 Accrington Stanley (0) 0 Smith 58 548 Colchester (1) 1 Barrow (0) 4 McGeehan 20 Greenidge 52og Ray 86 90+3 3,263 Mitchell 90+4og Crawley (1) 2 Harrogate (1) 1 Gladwin 23 Muldoon 45+6 Lolos 71 2,829 Crewe (2) 3 Doncaster (1) 2 Offord 29 Faal 16, Ironside 57 O’Riordan 44 90+2 4,263 Grimsby (1) 1 Sutton Utd (1) 1 Pyke 19 Smith 45+5 5,456 Newport County (1) 2 Stockport (0) 1 Morris 45+5 Olaofe 90+6 McLoughlin 68 4,053 Salford City (2) 2 MK Dons (1) 4 N’Mai 36, Watson 45+2pen Dean 10, Tomlinson 50 72 2,508 Harrison 88 Swindon (1) 2 Mansfield (0) 1 Young 38, 90+3 Akins 49 8,322 Tranmere (1) 3 Gillingham (0) 1 Apter 43 60, Jennings 53 Mahoney 90+1 Walsall (0) 0 Forest Green (0) 0 6,317 Wrexham (3) 6 Morecambe (0) 0 Senior 5og Mullin 7 67 77 Mendy 35, Jones 90+6 10,224 LEADING GOALSCORERS 15 Young (Swindon). 14 Langstaff (Notts County); Smith (Salford). 12 Olaofe (Stockport). 11 Keillor-Dunn (Mansfield); 10 Evans (Newport); Lee (Wrexham). 9 Kemp (Swindon); Barry (Stockport); Mellon (Morecambe). 8 Al Hamadi (AFC Wimbledon); Draper (Walsall); Crowley (Notts County) VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE P W D L F A GD Pts Chesterfield 21 17 2 2 53 28 +25 53 Bromley 22 12 6 4 36 23 +13 42 Barnet 22 13 3 6 43 35 +8 42 Solihull 22 10 7 5 32 30 +2 37 Gateshead 21 10 6 5 47 27 +20 36 Aldershot 22 11 3 8 38 36 +2 36 Altrincham 21 9 8 4 40 29 +11 35 Rochdale 22 9 6 7 40 34 +6 33 Halifax 22 8 8 6 24 21 +3 32 Oldham 22 7 9 6 33 33 0 30 Eastleigh 22 8 6 8 34 37 -3 30 Hartlepool 22 8 3 11 36 42 -6 27 Wealdstone 21 7 5 9 26 30 -4 26 Southend 21 10 5 6 37 22 +15 25 Dag & Red 22 7 4 11 24 29 -5 25 Dorking 21 7 4 10 26 37 -11 25 Boreham 22 5 9 8 27 32 -5 24 Maidenhead 22 5 9 8 23 32 -9 24 York 22 5 8 9 31 41 -10 23 Woking 22 6 4 12 24 30 -6 22 Ebbsfleet 22 6 4 12 30 42 -12 22 Oxford City 22 5 6 11 33 42 -9 21 Fylde 22 4 6 12 33 44 -11 18 Kidderminster 22 3 7 12 15 29 -14 16 Fylde 3 Dorking 3; Aldershot 1 Halifax 0; Altrincham 6 Solihull 1; Boreham 4 Woking 2; Chesterfield 3 Eastleigh 2; Dag & Red 1 Rochdale 2; Gateshead 1 Southend 1; Hartlepool 1 Bromley 4; Maidenhead 1 York 1; Oldham 1 Ebbsfleet 4; Oxford City 2 Kidderminster 2; Wealdstone 3 Barnet 2 VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE NORTH (top nine) P W D L F A GD Pts Tamworth 20 13 2 5 35 14 +21 41 Scunthorpe 20 12 4 4 41 18 +23 40 South Shields 21 10 6 5 35 21 +14 36 Curzon Ashton 19 9 5 5 25 16 +9 32 Chorley 19 8 7 4 31 20 +11 31 Spennymoor 20 9 4 7 32 32 0 31 Brackley 20 8 6 6 25 17 +8 30 Alfreton 19 8 5 6 32 24 +8 29 Scarborough 18 9 2 7 26 21 +5 29 Alfreton 0 Brackley 1; Banbury 0 Curzon Ashton 1; Blyth 2 Peterborough Sports 3; Boston 2 Chorley 2; Buxton 0 Southport 1; Darlington 1 Rushall Olympic 1; Farsley 0 Hereford 0; Gloucester 4 Spennymoor 2; Scarborough 5 Bishop’s Stortford 0; Scunthorpe 1 Warrington 0; South Shields 0 Chester 1; Tamworth 3 King’s Lynn 1 VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE SOUTH (top nine) P W D L F A GD Pts Yeovil 19 13 3 3 39 24 +15 42 Aveley 20 10 4 6 29 21 +8 34 Hampton & R 19 10 4 5 31 25 +6 34 Bath City 19 9 6 4 37 24 +13 33 Maidstone 19 9 6 4 27 21 +6 33 Braintree 20 8 6 6 33 22 +11 30 Worthing 18 9 3 6 32 25 +7 30 Tonbridge 21 8 6 7 30 28 +2 30 Chelmsford City 20 7 8 5 26 21 +5 29 Chelmsford 1 Truro 2; Chippenham 1 Hampton & R 2; Dartford 3 Torquay 0; Dover 0 Weston-S-Mare 1; Farnborough 2 Bath 2; Hemel Hempstead 1 Eastbourne 0; Slough 3 Braintree 0; St Albans 3 Maidstone 2; Taunton Town 1 Worthing 1; Tonbridge 4 Havant & W 1; Welling 4 Yeovil 1; Weymouth 1 Aveley 1 Sky Bet Championship Sky Bet League One Sky Bet League Two Other football P W D L F A GD Pts Leicester 17 14 0 3 31 10 +21 42 Ipswich 17 12 3 2 36 23 +13 39 Leeds 17 9 5 3 28 17 +11 32 Southampton 17 9 4 4 28 27 +1 31 West Brom 17 8 5 4 28 17 +11 29 Preston 17 8 4 5 24 26 -2 28 Cardiff 17 8 3 6 27 20 +7 27 Hull 17 7 6 4 24 21 +3 27 Sunderland 17 8 2 7 27 19 +8 26 Blackburn 17 8 1 8 27 26 +1 25 Bristol City 17 7 4 6 19 18 +1 25 Middlesbrough 17 7 3 7 25 26 -1 24 Norwich 17 7 2 8 30 32 -2 23 Birmingham 17 6 4 7 21 23 -2 22 Watford 17 5 6 6 23 20 +3 21 Stoke 17 6 3 8 16 21 -5 21 Swansea 17 5 5 7 24 23 +1 20 Millwall 17 5 5 7 19 22 -3 20 Plymouth 17 5 4 8 29 27 +2 19 Coventry 17 4 7 6 22 21 +1 19 Huddersfield 17 3 7 7 15 29 -14 16 Rotherham 17 2 6 9 16 33 -17 12 QPR 17 2 4 11 11 28 -17 10 Sheffield Wed 17 1 3 13 8 29 -21 6 Birmingham (1) 2 Sheffield Wed (1) 1 Bacuna 45+3 Byers 45 James 81 20,941 Bristol City (2) 3 Middlesbrough (0) 2 Gardner-Hickman 37 Vyner 50og Conway 45+1pen Crooks 52 Sykes 67 21,694 Huddersfield (0) 1 Southampton (1) 1 Jackson 87 A Armstrong 45+1 19,387 Leicester (0) 2 Watford (0) 0 Vardy 76 90+5pen 31,577 Millwall (0) 0 Coventry (1) 3 Godden 30, Sakamoto 67 18,067 Sheaf 88 Norwich (1) 1 QPR (0) 0 Hwang 21 25,650 Plymouth (2) 2 Sunderland (0) 0 Whittaker 24 Azaz 40 16,457 Preston (0) 1 Cardiff (0) 2 Osmajic 48 Grant 90+6 14,593 Ugbo 90+9 Stoke (0) 0 Blackburn (1) 3 Wharton 4, Moran 86 22,652 Szmodics 90+1 Swansea (2) 2 Hull (0) 2 Paterson 17, Yates 23 Philogene 48 14,864 Morton 68 West Brom (1) 2 Ipswich (0) 0 Furlong 5 Diangana 47 24,001 (played on Friday) Rotherham (1) 1 Leeds (1) 1 Odoffin 45+1 Summerville 6 11,471 LEADING GOALSCORERS 11 Szmodics (Blackburn). 10 A Armstrong (Southampton). 9 Clarke (Sunderland). 8 Piroe (Leeds, 2 for Swansea); Rowe (Norwich); Whittaker (Plymouth). 7 Godden (Coventry); Summerville (Leeds); Vardy (Leicester). Other results Cricket SECOND T20 INTERNATIONAL Thiruvananthapuram India 235-4 (RD Gaikwad 58, YBK Jaiswal 53, IPKP Kishan 52; N Ellis 3-45). Australia 191-9 (MP Stoinis 45, MS Wade 42no; R Bishnoi 3-32; MP Krishna 3-41). India beat Australia by 44 runs. Rugby union GALLAGHER PREMIERSHIP P W D L F A B Pts Sale 7 6 0 1 146 129 3 27 Saracens 7 5 0 2 209 163 4 24 Exeter 7 5 0 2 215 124 3 23 Bath 7 4 0 3 175 148 6 22 Harlequins 7 4 0 3 185 175 5 21 Northampton 7 4 0 3 169 163 5 21 Leicester 7 3 0 4 162 171 3 15 Bristol 7 2 0 5 162 179 4 12 Gloucester 7 2 0 5 131 198 3 11 Newcastle 7 0 0 7 114 218 4 4 Gloucester 20 Leicester 38; Newcadtle 14 Exeter 20; Saracens 39 Bristol 31. Friday Northampton 36 Harlequins 33; Sale 11 Bath 9 UNITED CHAMPIONSHIP P W D L F A B Pts Glasgow 6 5 0 1 179 123 5 25 Leinster 6 5 0 1 203 114 4 24 Blue Bulls 6 4 0 2 230 146 4 20 Ulster 6 4 0 2 151 141 2 18 Edinburgh 6 4 0 2 144 138 2 18 Benetton Treviso 6 4 1 1 107 110 0 18 Connacht 6 4 0 2 152 162 2 18 Munster 6 3 1 2 132 93 4 18 Ospreys 6 3 0 3 138 130 3 15 Lions 6 2 0 4 161 133 6 14 Cardiff 6 2 1 3 128 127 4 14 Stormers 6 2 0 4 140 121 5 13 Zebre 6 1 1 4 149 221 5 11 Sharks 6 1 0 5 130 126 3 7 Dragons 6 1 0 5 84 190 2 6 Scarlets 6 1 0 5 96 249 2 6 Bulls 53 Connacht 27; Glasgow 33 Ulster 20; Leinster 21 Munster 16; Lions 61 Zebre 19; Sharks 69 Dragons 14. Friday Cardiff 31 Stormers 24; Edinburgh 22 Benetton 24 RFU CHAMPIONSHIP P W D L F A B Pts Ealing 5 5 0 0 210 95 5 25 Doncaster 5 4 0 1 147 126 3 19 Nottingham 5 3 0 2 162 147 4 16 Ampthill 5 3 0 2 150 147 4 16 Cornish Pirates 4 3 0 1 134 66 3 15 Bedford 4 3 0 1 153 90 2 14 Coventry 4 2 0 2 133 77 3 11 Hartpury 5 1 0 4 118 163 2 6 Caldy 4 1 0 3 87 157 2 6 Cambridge 5 0 0 5 88 252 3 3 London Scottish 4 0 0 4 53 115 1 1 Ampthill 24 Cornish Pirates 46; Bedford 59 Cambridge 19; Doncaster 29 London Scottish 24; Ealing 31 Coventry 13. Friday Hartpury 20 Nottingham 32 NATIONAL LEAGUE ONE P W D L F A B Pts Rams 11 8 0 3 361 268 12 44 Chinnor 11 8 0 3 398 188 10 42 Plymouth 11 8 0 3 325 243 8 40 Sedgley Park 11 8 0 3 330 317 6 38 Birmingham Moseley 11 7 0 4 284 273 5 33 Rosslyn Park 11 6 0 5 344 315 7 31 Richmond 11 5 0 6 303 310 10 30 Blackheath 11 5 0 6 289 270 7 27 Darlington MP 11 5 0 6 251 310 5 25 Bishop’s Stortford 11 4 0 7 295 356 9 25 Cinderford 11 5 0 6 204 302 1 21 Taunton Titans 11 2 0 9 301 386 11 19 Leicester Lions 11 3 0 8 229 318 6 18 Sale FC 11 3 0 8 195 253 5 17 Blackheath 22 Rams 42; Chinnor 55 Richmond 26; Cinderford 19 Sedgley Park 43; Darlington MP 24 Taunton 33; Leicester Lions 29 Bishop’s Stortford 36; Plymouth 19 Birmingham Moseley 18; Sale FC 45 Rosslyn Park 12 NATIONAL LEAGUE TWO East Barnes 22 Henley 27; Canterbury 32 Old Albanian 27; Dorking 41 Sevenoaks 38; North Walsham 14 Guernsey 22; Westcombe Park 34 Bury St Edmunds 34; Wimbledon 14 Esher 34; Worthing 33 Tonbridge 43 North Huddersfield P Billingham P; Hull Ionians 14 Fylde 36; Hull RUFC 10 Tynedale 34; Leeds 26 Rotherham 20; Otley 41 Sheffield RUFC 45; Preston 22 Wharfedale 35; Sheffield Tigers 47 Lymm 35 West Bournville 22 Clifton 27; Dudley Kingswinford 24 Hinckley 38; Exeter University 12 Dings Crusaders 36; Loughborough Students 82 Camborne 25; Luctonians 42 Chester 19; Old Redcliffians 25 Hornets 21; Redruth 40 Newport 26 ALLIANZ WOMEN’S PREMIERSHIP P W D L F A B Pts Saracens 2 2 0 0 100 25 1 9 Exeter 2 2 0 0 73 41 1 9 Bristol 2 1 0 1 62 34 1 5 Gloucester-Hartpury 1 1 0 0 52 14 0 4 Harlequins 2 1 0 1 53 52 0 4 Sale 2 1 0 1 40 79 0 4 Ealing 2 0 0 2 35 74 1 1 Leicester 2 0 0 2 41 96 1 1 Loughborough 1 0 0 1 7 48 0 0 Gloucester-Hartpury 52 Leicester 14; Ealing 18 Saracens 52; Exeter 29 Bristol 14; Sale 35 Harlequins 31 Golf AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIP (Brisbane) Leading finals scores (Aus unless stated) 264 MW Lee 64 66 66 68. 267 R Hoshino (Jpn) 67 68 64 68. 268 M Leishman 68 69 67 64. 269 C Luck 67 67 66 69. 271 J Niemann (Chl) 68 69 67 67. 272 A Scott 66 65 71 70. 273 F Kennedy 71 66 69 67; C Davis 68 68 68 69; T Sinnott 69 69 70 65; L Herbert 66 68 69 70; R Cabrera (Sp) 68 68 70 67; J Moscatel (Sp) 63 71 70 69. 274 R Hisatsune (Jpn) 66 73 66 69; C Syme 66 73 64 71. JOBURG OPEN (Johannesburg, South Africa) Leading finals scores (SA unless stated) 262 D Burmester 68 62 68 64. 265 D Fichardt 66 67 68 64. 267 D Bradbury (Eng) 66 69 68 64. 268 Z Lombard 66 65 69 68; J Kruyswijk 66 64 69 69. 269 N Rama 65 62 72 70. 270 T Lawrence 62 66 67 75; G Green (Mal) 70 69 67 64. 271 C Bezuidenhout 69 66 68 68; J Schaper 66 70 67 68; D van Driel (Neth) 67 73 68 63. 272 N Schietekat 70 69 66 67; A Sullivan (Eng) 66 70 68 68; R Fisher (Eng) 70 65 68 69; D Frittelli 68 67 68 69; M Elvira (Sp) 71 64 70 67. WOMEN’S ANALUSIA OPEN (Marbella, Spain) Leading final scores (GB/Ire unless stated) 271 A Ashok (Ind) 69 68 68 66. 273 A van Dam (Neth) 69 71 65 68. 275 A Peláez (Sp) 69 68 70 68. 276 L Grant (Swe) 65 72 71 68; K Rudgeley (Aus) 66 69 68 73. 277 M De Roey (Bel) 68 72 67 70. 278 A Revuelta (Sp) 69 70 69 70; C Boutier (Fr) 67 72 68 71; D Dagar (Ind) 72 71 68 67; M Stavnar (Nor) 69 68 72 69; C Hedwall (Swe) 73 69 70 66. 279 C Ciganda (Sp) 68 72 70 69; S Nuutinen (Fin) 74 72 64 69. 281 J Gustavsson (Swe) 71 73 69 68. 282 A-L Caudal (Fr) 70 67 72 73; L-A Pace (SA) 68 70 73 71; M Hernández (Sp) 71 74 67 70. 283 J López (Sp) 73 69 68 73; VE Carta (It) 73 74 65 71; E Spitz (Aut) 71 71 69 72. Tennis DAVIS CUP FINALS (Malaga, Spain) Australia 0 Italy 2: M Arnaldi (It) bt A Popyrin (Aus) 7-5 2-6 6-4; J Sinner (It) bt A De Minuar (Aus) 6-3 6-0. Basketball BBL CHAMPIONSHIP Cheshire 82 Caledonia 92; Plymouth 63 Surrey 65; Sheffield 88 Bristol 78 Ice hockey ELITE LEAGUE Cardiff 6 Fife 0; Glasgow 4 Manchester 3(OT); Guildford 2 Sheffield 6; Nottingham 2 Belfast 4 Motorcycling VALENCIA GRAND PRIX (Spain) MotoGP: 1 F Bagnaia (It) Ducati 40min 58.535sec; 2 J Zarco (Fr) Ducati +0.360; 3 B Binder (SA) KTM +2.347; 4 F Di Giannantonio (It) Ducati +3.176; 5 R Fernández (Sp) Aprilia +4.636; 6 A Márquez (Sp) Ducati +4.708; 7 F Morbidelli (It) Yamaha +4.736; 8 A Espargaro (Sp) Aprilia +8.014; 9 L Marini (It) Ducati +9.486; 10 M Viñales (Sp) Aprilia +10.556 Championship standings: 1 F Bagnaia (It) Ducati 467pts; 2 J Martín (Sp) Ducati 428; 3 M Bezzecchi (It) Ducati 329; 4 B Binder (SA) KTM 290; 5 J Zarco (Fr) Ducati 221; 6 A Espargaro (Sp) Aprilia 206; 7 M Viñales (Sp) Aprilia 204; 8 L Marini (It) Ducati 201; 9 A Márquez (Sp) Ducati 177; 10 F Quartararo (Fr) Yamaha 172. Snooker UK CHAMPIONSHIPS (York) First round: Anda Z (Chn) bt E Slessor (Eng) 6-5; L Brecel (Bel) bt Yuan S (Chn) 6-4; RJ Clarke (Wal) bt K Wilson (Eng) 6-5. Kempton 12.20 Captain Marvellous 12.50 Floating Line 1.25 Harbour Lake 2.00 Ballintubber Boy 2.35 Kateira 3.05 Thelasthighking (nb) 3.35 Oslo Ludlow 12.35 Time Interval 1.05 Little Pi 1.40 Braganza Bay 2.15 Fantomas 2.50 You Say Nothing (nap) 3.20 Minniemum 3.50 Chatty Chich Greg Wood’s racing tips 33 Tennis Arnaldi and Sinner lead Italy to glory Tumaini Carayol Málaga Italy fulfi lled their potential as one of the most promising tennis nations in the world by defeating Australia 2-0 to become Davis Cup champions for the fi rst time since 1976. In the opening rubber between the second-ranked players in Málaga, the 22-year-old Matteo Arnaldi edged past Alexei Popyrin 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 to give Italy the fi rst point. Then, less than 24 hours after toppling Novak Djokovic twice in one day, Jannik Sinner again demonstrated nerves of steel as he closed off the best two weeks of his career by dominating Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-0. “This is a really important win for me and for the whole team and Italy together, no? We felt the pressure,” said Sinner. “We had a lot of responsibility. But still we managed. We stand up for it. We were excited. Obviously, everyone is really happy about the end result.” The tie was dictated by a brutal opening encounter, a must win for both teams because of the dominance of Sinner and the Australian doubles team. Arnaldi and Popyrin, two younger players who have yet to break the top 35, were thrust into an enormous occasion for which nothing in their career had prepared them. The contest was decided by Arnaldi’s sheer stubbornness and resilience. The Italian was thoroughly outplayed throughout the third set, facing break points in four of his fi ve service games and eight in total. His easiest hold in the entire set was from 15-30 down as the Australian eased through his own service games. Somehow, Arnaldi kept hold of his serve, playing fearlessly on the break points, and he kept the set on serve long enough for Popyrin to feel pressured by the scoreboard. One poor game by Popyrin while trailing 4-5 decided the match. Asked how he won, Arnaldi said he did not know. “I was playing pretty bad, I think,” he said. “ But, you know, it was – important for me to play every point, to stay there and try something.” Between Sinner’s incredible recent form and his 5-0 record against De  Minaur over four years, the 22-year-old entered the court heavily favoured to close out the tie. After a timid start, Sinner soon found his rhythm. He attacked relentlessly off both wings, spraying winners from all parts of the court, and it soon turned into a rout. ▲ Jannik Sinner during his win over Alex de Minaur that sealed the title

••• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 34 Sport Formula One Verstappen ends record-breaking season in style Giles Richards Perhaps it was the sheer scale of his achievement that fi nally hit home for Max Verstappen as he stood victorious on the podium for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to close out the 2023 Formula One season. The Dutchman smiled on the top step but his features betrayed a sense that he was aware it may never be better than this. His win at the Yas Marina circuit was indicative of the absolute authority with which he has dominated this season. By the fl ag he had more than 17 seconds on Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was second. Leclerc gave a valiant drive but, with George Russell in third, one that was not enough to prevent Mercedes beating the Scuderia to second in the constructors’ championship. Verstappen, of course, was not involved in such petty squabbling after a season of such success and almost fl awless execution. He was untouchable from pole to fl ag, the margins such that he might have got out, had a cup of coff ee, a go on the Space Invaders machine and still had time to spare. The 26-year-old already had his third world championship sealed in Qatar. Abu Dhabi was but the most emphatic full stop as he and his Red Bull team completed what stands as the most dominant season in F1 history. Yet even in the very fi nal throes of this odyssey Verstappen was typically focused on claiming another record. He told his team to leave him out longer from a pit stop as he sought to become the fi rst driver to lead for 1,000 laps in a season. With relentless single-mindedness then, that now belongs to him too. The numbers take something to grasp, just as they make diffi cult reading for his rivals, who will be pleased to put this behind them in the hope that next year they may have more to do than watch Verstappen disappear into the middle distance at every race, and it has been almost literally every race. With the Abu Dhabi win he fi nishes with 19 from 22, surpassing his own tally of 15 last year and far beyond the previous record of 13 by Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher. This is a level of dominance not seen before, a run which includes 10 consecutive victories in a demonstration of immense control. Even the occasions when he had to come through the fi eld presented only minor inconvenience to the Dutchman whose record, alongside those wins, includes two second places and one fi fth. How that particular damned spot must rankle on an otherwise blot-free copybook. What stands out is how short but intense this period has been that elevates him into the very top echelon. With 34 victories in the past two years this, his 54th, surpasses Vettel’s career tally of 53, making the Dutchman the third most successful driver by wins in F1 history, behind only Lewis Hamilton and Schumacher. The naysayers will point to his superb car, superior to the rest of Norris and Oscar Piastri were in fi fth and sixth for McLaren, enough to maintain their lead over Aston Martin and claim fourth in the constructors’ championship. Red Bull, too, fi nish with numbers that are unparalleled. They have won 21 races, beating the Mercedes record of 19 from 21 in 2016. They might have even pulled off a fl awless season but for being off the pace in Singapore where Carlos Sainz took the fl ag. Verstappen has said already that addressing that one weakness is a goal for next season – ominous intent indeed for a driver who has been all but untouchable in 2023. the fi eld. Yet his teammate Sergio Pérez was in the same machinery but remained in a diff erent class to Verstappen, who delivered a season of such consistency it is hard to imagine it being equalled. The race – as is so often the case at this fl at enormodrome in the desert – was something of a procession but enlivened by the fi ght between Mercedes and Ferrari for second in the constructors’ championship . Through a tense final third, Mercedes did well to hold their place – Russell nerveless in doing enough as Pérez, who fi nished fourth, charged at the death. Russell had to hold third to seal the place. Pérez had passed the British driver on lap 54 but had to then make up fi ve seconds on him for a penalty imposed after the Mexican had clashed with McLaren’s Lando Norris. Pérez duly made more than three seconds and Leclerc let him past in a last-gasp eff ort to help the Mexican but Russell held the place as the laps counted down, doubtless amid sighs of relief at Mercedes, who will welcome the additional $10m in prize money . ▲ Max Verstappen after winning his 19th race out of 22 this season ▲ Max Verstappen performs doughnuts at the Yas Marina Circuit MARK THOMPSON/GETTY IMAGES Results 1 Max Verstappen Neth 26pts Red Bull 1hr 27min02.624sec 2 Charles Leclerc Mnc 18pts Ferrari +17.993 3 George Russell GB 15pts Mercedes +20.328 4 Sergio Pérez Mex 12pts Red Bull +21.453 5 Lando Norris GB 10pts McLaren +24.284 6 Oscar Piastri Aus 8pts McLaren +31.487 7 Fernando Alonso Sp 6pts Aston Martin +39.512 8 Yuki Tsunoda Jpn 4pts AlphaTauri +43.088 9 Lewis Hamilton GB 2pts Mercedes +44.424 10 Lance Stroll Can 1pt Aston Martin +55.632 Also finished 11 Daniel Ricciardo Aus AlphaTauri +56.229 12 Esteban Ocon Fr Alpine +1:06.373 13 Pierre Gasly Fr Alpine +1:10.360 14 Alexander Albon Tha Williams +1:13.184 15 Nico Hülkenberg Ger Haas +1:23.696 16 Logan Sargeant US Williams +1:27.791 17 Zhou Guanyu Chn Alfa Romeo +1:29.422 18 Carlos Sainz Sp Ferrari DNF 57 laps 19 Valtteri Bottas Fin Alfa Romeo +1 lap 20 Kevin Magnussen Den Haas + 1 lap Championship standings Drivers: 1 Verstappen 557pts; 2 Pérez 285; 3 Hamilton 234; 4 Alonso 206; 5 Leclerc 206; 6 Norris 205; 7 Sainz 200; 8 Russell 175;9 Piastri 97; 10 Stroll 74 Constructors: 1 Red Bull 860pts; 2 Mercedes 409; 3 Ferrari 406; 4 McLaren 302; 5 Aston Martin 280; 6 Alpine 120; 7 Williams 28; 8 AlphaTauri 25; 9 Alfa Romeo 16; 10 Haas 12 Lewis Hamilton issued a downbeat assessment of his chances of competing against Red Bull in the Formula One world championship next year after this season came to a close in Abu Dhabi. Hamilton’s Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff , also conceded the task that lay ahead was “a Mount Everest to climb”. Max Verstappen won at the Yas Marina circuit to secure his 19th victory in 22 races. He and Red Bull have been untouchable this season. Hamilton could manage only ninth and has now gone more than two full seasons without a win. The seven-time champion believes the advantage Red Bull hold will be hard to overcome, especially given how early they stopped working on this year’s car and shifted resources to next year’s model. “Red Bull won by 17 seconds and they have not touched the car since August or July,” Hamilton said. “So you can pretty much guess where they’re going to be next year.” The British driver was clearly despondent at the end of a trying season in an uncompetitive car. “It’s not been a great year in general so there’s not a lot to take from it,” he said. “The fact that I survived it. That’s probably about it.” Despite claiming second in the constructors’ championship in Abu Dhabi and with the team adopting a new design philosophy for next year, Wolff was similarly blunt in his assessment of Red Bull’s advantage as the teams go into the close season. “There is a Mount Everest to climb in order to catch up with Red Bull,” Wolff said. “Red Bull started the new regulations in 2022 with a massive advantage and they have been able to maintain it. “We have a lot of respect for their achievements, from the engineering side, and the driver. “Beating them under the current regulations is against the odds.” Verstappen, who has enjoyed the most dominant season in F1 history, acknowledged it had been an unparalleled success but one he was not sure could ever be repeated. “It’s been an incredible season, it was a bit emotional on the in-lap, it was the last time sitting in the car which has of course given me a lot,” he said. “It will be very hard to have another season like this, we know that. “Of course, you always want to do better but sometimes doing better is not only race wins and potentially winning the championship, we will see. We are working hard for next year to again have a very competitive car.” Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, noted pointedly that winning 21 of 22 races meant there was still “room for improvement” but he paid tribute to the eff orts of his team. “It’s all about winning,” he said. “We still operate as an old school race team, we push the limits and we push ourselves. “Nobody wants to let the side down. That unrelenting desire and spirit within the team enables these results.” Giles Richards ▲ Lewis Hamilton does not fancy his chances against Red Bull next year ‘I survived it’ Hamilton downbeat after trying season

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • 35 Rob Baxter and his Exeter players were able to do something they had not done for a long time. For the fi rst time since 7 October 2022, the y could savour a Premiership away win, thus condemning their hosts to a seventh defeat this season and a 10th in succession dating back to March. You had to sympathise for Alex Codling and his Falcons, who showed spirit and skill to overturn Exeter’s early lead with two quickfi re tries from the hooker Jamie Blamire and the outside -centre Mat ías Moroni. Exeter, though, were not to be denied and second-half scores from Henry Slade and Josh Iosefa-Scott, adding to Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s delightful opener, saw them home. Having won all four Premiership home games this season, a fi rst success on the road since beating Bristol 50-14 at Ashton Gate 414 days earlier – when Liz Truss was still prime minister – lifted them to third in the table. Baxter is patiently writing a new chapter with a remodelled team and the director of rugby said: “The big thing we targeted was having control of the middle third of the fi eld. “ We actually did that very well and Newcastle didn’t get multiple entries into our 22. There was a minute of madness where they got a couple of offl oads away and bang, that was Rugby union Gallagher Premiership Slade sinks Falcons to end Exeter drought their points for the game. Outside of that, we had almost as much control as we could have wanted in the middle third. That gave us lots of entries into their 22 and it harmed their entries into ours. That was the big thing for me.” Newcastle had organised a prematch fl ag display with Wor Flags, which routinely produces such spectacular displays across the city at St James’ Park. Fans were given black and white fl ags to wave and a banner inscribed with the words “Welcome to the true north ” was held aloft at pitchside before kick-off . It was an admirable attempt to rouse Codling’s players, who must have been impressed by the display as Sam Fender’s Hypersonic Missiles blared out over the public address system. It created a sense of occasion but might even have left them dazed as they seemed half asleep when Exeter scored inside the opening minute courtesy of Feyi-Waboso. Collecting possession inside the right channel, the wing drove at the heart of the Newcastle defence, displaying formidable strength and speed to scythe through several players and leave Louie Johnson, a 20-year-old Cumbrian fl y-half in his fi rst Premiership start, clutching at thin air as he sauntered over the line. The response from Newcastle, though, was emphatic as they hit back to lead 14-5 by the eighth minute. Their fi rst try came when the blindside flanker Pedro Rubiolo broke and showed intelligence to send Blamire galloping over the line. It was a forcible reminder of the hooker’s qualities in front of the England head coach, Steve Borthwick, and poured confi dence into his team. Newcastle scored again moments later when Iwan Stephens collected a deft offl oad from Guy Pepper and chipped forward for Moroni to touch down inside the left channel. That capped a breathless opening but Slade cut the deficit to five points with a penalty shortly before the interval as Newcastle, who won 13 turnovers, kept their visitors at bay until the 63rd minute. Ben Hammersley broke from midfi eld and sent Slade racing clear with a simple pass to cut Newcastle’s lead to a point. Exeter plundered the winning score 11 minutes from time when Jacques Vermeulen was denied from close range before IosefaScott squeezed over the line. Slade added the conversion and fi nally Exeter’s hoodoo was ended while for Newcastle the misery continues. They failed to register a point in the second half and Codling said: “ The players and myself are pretty crestfallen and no one wants to give the supporters a win more than I do. “But we’re just making basic errors that will kill you at any level, particularly in the Premiership. Fundamentally, that’s not acceptable.” Newcastle 14 Exeter 20 Ross Heppenstall Kingston Park Newcastle Penny; Radwan, Moroni (Brown 58), Hutchison (Jennings 20), Stephens; Johnson, Elliott (O’Sullivan 73); Brantingham (Brocklebank 56), Blamire, Bello (McCallum 59), Hawkins, McDonald ( Van der Walt 56), Rubiolo, Pepper (Cross 35), Chick Tries Blamire, Moroni Cons Johnson 2 Exeter Wyatt; Feyi-Waboso (Haydon-Wood 12 ; Hendrickson 22), Slade, Hawkins, Hammersley; Skinner, Cairns (Townsend 59); Sio (Hepburn 47), Yeandle (Norey 47), Painter (Iosefa-Scott 47), Tuima, Jenkins, Vermeulen, Roots, Davis (Vintcent 53) Tries Feyi-Waboso, Slade, Iosefa-Scott Con Slade Pen Slade Referee Christophe Ridley Attendance 5,603 Football Barclays Women’s Super League James double eases leaders Chelsea to victory over Leicester Chelsea continued their strong form with victory against Leicester in a scintillating encounter . Emma Hayes’s side got off to a rapid start with a goal from Lauren James and an own goal from Courtney Nevin. Leicester’s resilience, however, shone through when Jutta Rantala scored before Sam Tierney cancelled out Sam Kerr’s restoration of the defi - cit. James and Aggie Beever-Jones added two further goals in the second half to make sure of the three points. Despite being frustrated by elements of her team’s performance, Hayes was proud of the way they have come through an intense run of games. “It was maybe too good a start,” she said. “ Almost in every football match I’ve coached, going 2-0 up so early is such a terrible score because you get sloppy. We won 30% of our duels in the fi rst half; that was a season low for us. So, for me, all the little things were poor. But I will not focus on them because the team have been tremendous this entire block. W e looked threatening going forward and we got a variety of goalscorers.” The Blues returned to Kingsmeadow for the fi rst time in almost a month. They are the only team with an unbeaten record in the Women’s Super League, having also defeated a resilient Paris FC in Europe on Thursday. The Chelsea manager has been outspoken in recent weeks on player loading and rang the changes. Sophie Ingle, Ève Périsset, Fran Kirby and Maren Mjelde came in to bring fresh energy. They faced a Leicester team that have been enjoying a turnaround in fortunes. The Foxes have impressed in these early months with their brave, aggressive football and came into this fi xture sitting in seventh. Willie Kirk also made a handful of changes from the side that had drawn with Spurs, with Aimee Palmer, Julie Thibaud and Aileen Whelan starting. It was a rampant Chelsea who came out of the blocks, any fears of tiredness from their midweek exploits fading fast. Within fi ve minutes of the whistle, they were two goals ahead due to a combination of ruthless forward play and loose defending. For the fi rst, James snuck in front of Thibaud as Tierney sent a pass backwards. She raced towards the box and made no mistake with the fi nish past Janina Leitzig. Chelsea pounced again shortly after with James displaying her electric pace once more. Leitzig got a good hand to the shot but could only parry it on to Nevin and it ricocheted off the defender into the net. There was evident consternation in the Leicester ranks as the game appeared to be running away from them as Chelsea were able to force the turnovers and slice through their defensive line at ease. A pause in play, however, allowed the visitors to regroup and they began to settle. Their transitional play has been a strong asset and it was through this they were starting to fi nd some joy. With almost half an hour played, they had pulled themselves back into the fi xture. Lena Petermann turned smoothly to feed Rantala who fi red clinically past Ann-Katrin Berger. It was a goal that levelled the encounter and Rantala had an opportunity to add another, dragging her shot wide from distance. Chelsea, though, were always dangerous and went through the gears once more. Erin Cuthbert had a goal disallowed for offside moments before Kerr extended the home side’s lead once again. Niamh Charles, enjoying an impressive season, showed her strength to hold off Catherine Bott. She worked space to direct in a low cross for the Chelsea forward to turn it home unmarked. Leicester, however, showed their stubbornness once more just before the break. When Petermann broke through the Chelsea defensive line, Berger rushed out of her box to rashly take the forward down. Palmer, known for her set -piece ability, stepped up to crash a sweetly struck attempt off the woodwork with Tierney fi rst to react at the near post to narrow the defi cit. A pause in proceedings allowed everyone in the stadium to take their breath. The second half failed to reach the same intensity as Chelsea dominated proceedings. James added another with a lifted fi nish with half an hour to play before Beever-Jones added a fi fth as the clock wound towards the fi nal whistle. It was a comfortable scoreline in the end for Hayes’ side who retained their place at the top of the table before the international break. Sophie Downey Kingsmeadow Chelsea 5 James 2 58, Nevin 5og, Kerr 40, Beever-Jones 88 Leicester City 2 Rantala 26, Tierney 44 Chelsea 4-2-3-1 Berger; P érisset, Mjelde (Nouwen 86), Carter, Charles (Lawrence 74); Cuthbert, Ingle; Rytting Kaneryd, Kirby (Beever-Jones 74), James (N üsken 74); Kerr (Fleming 81) Subs not used Musovic, Hampton, Fishel, Buchanan Leicester City 4-2-3-1 Leitzig; Bott, Thibaud• (Green 76), Howard•, Nevin; Palmer (Cain  ht), Tierney; Cayman, Rantala (Goodwin 76), Whelan; Petermann• (Siemsen 76) Subs not used Kop, Robinson, Baker, Sherwood, Draper Referee Megan Wilson (Eng) ▼ Lauren James scores Chelsea’s fourth goal in their 5-2 win over Leicester DAVE SHOPLAND/SHUTTERSTOCK ▲ Exeter celebrate their fi rst away Premiership victory in 13 months Alex Codling Newcastle head coach ‘The players and myself are pretty crestfallen’

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 36 Sport Football Premier League Garnacho acrobatics douse Everton’s fi re Pickford’s goal with the Everton goalkeeper well beaten. The goal was reminiscent of Wayne Rooney’s spectacular winner for United against Manchester City in 2011 . Garnacho’s goal stunned Everton but the hosts created enough chances to have led by the interval. Dominic Calvert-Lewin met James Garner’s corner with a towering header that he placed too close to André Onana. The Everton striker forced a better save from the United keeper with a fi rst-time shot and Dwight McNeil was close to converting the rebound only for Mainoo to clear off the line. The 18-year-old demonstrated why Ten Hag had such high hopes for the central midfi elder before injury struck in pre-season. He denied McNeil again with a fi ne block when the Everton winger found space inside the United area. Abdoulaye Doucouré and Idrissa Gana Gueye were both guilty of glaring misses as Everton increased the pressure before half-time. Goodison’s anger turned towards the referee, John Brooks, after a series of inconsistent decisions, including booking Doucouré for dissent when asking why Garnacho was not cautioned for kicking the ball away. Everton’s sense of grievance Garnacho revives memories of Rooney Alejandro Garnacho’s spectacular overhead kick gives Manchester United an early lead at Goodison Park JON SUPER/AP Everton burned with a sense of injustice over the record 10-point deduction that has revived relegation fears just when it seemed Sean Dyche’s side had left them behind. Manchester United performed with cool heads and cold intent instead, and savoured the biggest win of their season . United’s previous seven league wins this season had all been by a single-goal margin but here, against an Everton team reeling from the heaviest sporting sanction in Premier League history, a comfortable victory was built on character plus the clinical touch that their opponents lack. A stupendous overhead kick from Alejandro Garnacho set Erik ten Hag’s team on their way to an impressive win in which the 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo excelled on his full debut. A second-half penalty from Marcus Everton 0 Manchester United 3 Garnacho 3, Rashford 56pen, Martial 75 Andy Hunter Goodison Park Rashford proved pivotal in taking the game away from Everton. Anthony Martial provided the gloss with his fi rst goal of the season late on. Dyche’s team had 24 attempts on goal compared to United’s nine and adapted well to the unique circumstances that have enveloped the club. But fi nishing deserted them yet again at Goodison Park. Everton are five points from safety and cannot allow themselves to become demoralised by a punishment not of their players’ making. “The message to them is, we can cry and say it is unjust, and I think the whole of football thinks it is unjust,” the Everton manager said. “Or we get on with it. We can’t guaran tee the appeal, only what we can do about it each week on the pitch.” Everton protests against the Premier League were well funded, with more than £40,000 raised for the banners and 38,000 pink cards that fi lled Goodison Park . There was a wild atmosphere with boos starting as soon as two men stepped on to the pitch carrying Premier League signage before kick-off . But what an angry crowd and a fi red-up team could not legislate for was an early moment of brilliance from Garnacho. His wondrous overhead kick drew the sting from Everton’s ire, temporarily, and provided an emphatic reminder of the indivi dual talent at Ten Hag’s disposal. For all the angst that surrounds United’s season they are now the league’s in-form team since the beginning of October with fi ve wins from six matches . Confi dence is one thing Garnacho does not lack, as he confi rmed after only 136 seconds. Everton were exposed by a cross-fi eld pass from Victor Lindelöf out to Rashford on the right. Rashford released Diogo Dalot to the by-line and, though his deep cross was sailing away from the danger zone, Garnacho read its fl ight to perfection. Taking a step back, and turning away from goal, the teenager launched himself into the air to meet Dalot’s delivery with an unstoppable overhead kick that fl ew into the top corner of Jordan 5 Manchester United have won fi ve of their last six league games. Since the start of October, their fi ve wins and 15 points are both the most any side has recorded 4 Only Burnley (0) have earned fewer home points than Everton’s 4. Everton have never won fewer points from their opening seven at home Possession Everton Man Utd 51% 49% Shots on target 6 3 Total attempts 24 8

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • 37 deepened when Brooks awarded United a penalty after a pitch-side review. The referee initially booked Martial for diving over Ashley Young’s outstretched right foot as he darted into the area. VAR advised Brooks to take a second look and he deemed Martial to have been tripped by the veteran defender. Bruno Fernandes gave the penalty to Rashford in a bid to boost the striker’s confi dence. He duly smashed only his second goal of the season into the top corner. Martial wrapped up victory at the end of a fl owing United move instigated by the substitute Facundo Pellistri. Fernandes dissected the home defence for the forward to lift a nonchalant fi nish over Pickford and claim his ninth goal in 17 appearances against Everton. He is not the only one whom Everton believe has it in for them. Everton 4-4-1-1 Pickford; Young• (Patterson, 73), Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko; Harrison, Garner, Gueye•, McNeil (Danjuma 73); Doucouré• (Dobbin 90); Calvert-Lewin (Chermiti, 82) Subs not used Virginia, Keane, Godfrey, Coleman, Hunt Manchester United 4-2-3-1 Onana; Dalot, Maguire, Lindelöf, Shaw (WanBissaka 76); McTominay, Mainoo (Amrabat 72); Rashford, Fernandes, Garnacho (Pellistri 72); Martial• (Mejbri 84) Subs not used Bayindir, Reguilón, Varane, Van de Beek, Hugill. Referee John Brooks Fuelled by boos, Dyche’s side can be galvanised by this spirit of protest when their luck turns Comment Jonathan Wilson Goodison Park closed to traffi c as fans gathered to protest, demonstrating a fervent togetherness not usually seen at Goodison until the threat of relegation really begins to bite around Easter. A barrage of fi reworks was let off in the street outside after about 13 minutes, presumably part of the protest, although its precise relevance was unclear. The chants against the Premier League were many and varied, although the general message was consistent: “Premier League, what’s the score?”, “Premier League, corrupt as fuck”. Manchester United fans responded with, “You cheating bastards, you know what you are”. As they should: banter about the regulatory enforcement of fi nancial caps is the very essence of the modern game. One banner in the Gwladys Street End read: “Where there is power, greed and money … there is corruption”, while another made seemingly specifi c reference to the suggestion in the statement from Andy Burnham , the Everton-supporting mayor of Greater Manchester, that the Premier League had discussed the sanction against Everton in relation to the coming independent regulator, the implication being that the penalty was exemplary and political rather than deriving from pre-existing principle. However robust Everton’s defi ance, there has been a sense this weekend that things are just running against them. The one consolation of the points deduction was that it pushed Everton back into the dogfi ght when in other seasons it might have cast them adrift. But then Luton chose this weekend to claim their fi rst home win of the season and Bournemouth their fi rst away . The situation looked far worse at kick-off than it had done on Saturday morning. It soon got even worse . Within three minutes Alejandro Garnacho had thrashed a bicycle kick into the top corner: it’s been a while since anyone at Goodison had such control of their overheads. It quickly became apparent that this was one of those days when nothing would go right. In his United career, André Onana has been a curious mix of sharp refl exes and inopportune dematerialisation. Here it was the former to the fore as he made a fi ne double save before the clearance was completed by Kobbie Mainoo. The 18-year-old Mainoo impressed in the summer but injury meant this was his fi rst appearance of the season. He looks an enormous talent but why, Everton fans were entitled to ask, did he have to announce himself against them? Why did it have to be today that Marcus Rashford scored his fi rst club goal in almost three months? Or that Anthony Martial scored his fi rst league goal since May (even if he is a specialist, having scored more against Everton than any other club)? That goal happened to come in United’s last league win by more than a single goal – before yesterday . And that’s without mentioning all the chances that Everton spurned in the fi rst half. In the end they were beaten comfortably enough but, before the penalty, it could easily have gone the other way. That’s what they have to hang on to. It would, obviously, have been better to have begun the resistance with a win, particularly given the diffi culty of the fi xture list over the next month. But they will not have many games in which the fates are so decisively against them. The improvements under Sean Dyche should still be enough to keep them up if they can maintain the galvanising spirit of righteous fury. Win or lose, they have to be on the boos. S ay what you like about the crowd at Goodison Park, but they are really good at booing. They’ve had plenty of practice in recent years, of course, but, still, there was something viscerally impressive abo ut the boos before kick-off . It began as a low moan, like the agonised groan of a brontosaurus dying in a distant valley, then built slowly, rumbling mournfully through the old stadium, gaining in depth and plaintiveness and volume to fi nally break in a mighty foghorn of despair summoned from the guts of all Evertonians. They had already booed the two blokes in dark rain-jackets who brought out the Premier League signage, as well as the six ballboys who, with an understandable degree of hesitation, unfurled the Premier League fl ag. Poor John Brooks, the referee, was booed as a representative of the evil empire that has done Everton down before even blowing for kick-off . By half-time, he was being booed and denounced as unfi t to referee for the more conventional reason of booking Abdoulaye Doucouré but not Scott McTominay or Bruno Fernandes. And within 1 1 minutes of the start of the second half, the boos directed at Brooks blended gloom with fury, as he overturned the yellow card given to Anthony Martial for diving to award a penalty. They booed in accordance with the pre-game plan on 10 minutes, as the stands – as they had been as the teams took the pitch – bristled with the lurid pink cards bearing the Premier League lion and the single word “Corrupt” that had been distributed outside the ground. No one should be in any doubt about the unanimity of anger against the 10-point deduction. As was always likely, the mood was of standing against a common enemy. County Road had to be g Kobbie Mainoo shone on his full league debut for Manchester United Everton fans were united in anger against the Premier League TOM JENKINS/THE GUARDIAN ‘High potential’ Ten Hag wants winger to build on wonder goal Andy Hunter Goodison Park Erik ten Hag believes Alejandro Garnacho has the talent to do “ amazing things” for Manchester United but insisted it would be wrong to compare the teenager to Wayne Rooney or Cristiano Ronaldo after his stunning overhead kick against Everton. The 19-year-old evoked memories of Rooney’s goal against Manchester City in 2011 and Ronaldo’s strike for Real Madrid against Juventus in the 2018 Champions League quarter-finals with a remarkable finish from Diogo Dalot’s cross at Goodison Park. Ten Hag was delighted with how United handled a hostile environment before trips to Galatasaray and Newcastle this week, with Everton fans protesting against their club’s 10-point penalty for breaching fi nancial rules. And while praising Garnacho for an “incredible, fantastic” goal, the United manager insisted the forward needs to produce such magic more regularly to earn comparisons with former Old Traff ord greats. “Don’t compare, I don’t think it’s right,” said Ten Hag . “They all have their own identity. For Garnacho to go that way he has to work very hard and do it on a consistent basis. So far he has not, but he defi nitely has high potential to do some amazing things. If you want to be a player like Rooney or Ronaldo you have to score 20, 25 goals in the Premier League. It’s not easy to get, you have to work very hard and go in ways where it hurts. A lot to come but he has potential.” Marcus Rashford took the game away from a profl igate Everton with a second-half penalty. It was only the striker’s second goal of the season for United and the penalty was handed to him by the captain, Bruno Fernandes, in an attempt to boost his confi dence. Fernandes, United’s usual penalty taker, said: “Marcus needed a bit of confi dence, he needed his goal – he is an excellent penalty taker. I was sure he could score that penalty and Marcus did it perfectly. I think strikers and wingers need to score goals, it is part of their game. Marcus last season was amazing so expectations have been higher .” Erik ten Hag Manchester Utd manager ‘Garnacho has to work hard and do it consistently ’

• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 38 Sport Terry Venables 1943-2023 Venables was an entertainer with the tactical nous to save England from its insularity The manager who turned a ruined England into Euro 96 contenders was the one the country craved since 1966 kept luring him back to the dugout while his “investment schemes” were burning up his time. In his era, and in his character, Venables absorbed the angst of a nation hung up on 1966 but still in the early years of the Premier League revolution, before an infl ux of foreign players and managers transformed the English game . In Venables’s time the conversation was still internal: the mother country arguing with itself. The choice was binary. In the industry you were either for Venables or against him. The “friends of Terry” became shorthand for the division in a media camp that hung on his every word, either in admiration or to jump on a fl aw. Visionaries and reformers in other countries didn’t seem to have such complicated lives. In retrospect, a football manager who had to pulp his own autobiography, was upbraided for “deliberately and dishonestly” misleading a jury and was banned from being a company director was never likely to be remembered solely as a tracksuit thinker. But Venables could be mesmerising company. The more time you spent with him the more you noticed his hyper-vigilant need for knowledge. Between comic anecdotes and Paul Hayward ce 1966 tactical asides he would poke and prod everyone around the table for bits of information on this player, that chairman, this or that club. Behind the lights of his smile, his love for singing Frank Sinatra songs and his wise-guy self-regard, Venables possessed a football brain with no off -switch. He was always alive to the next opportunity, the ever-present need to stay ahead of the hounds. An “educated” coach, as Adams called him, Venables opened the eyes of England’s players at Euro 96 to the possibility of playing like the continental powers. It was what they wanted, they all said: an escape from their own deadening history. With England and at Barcelona, in both cases briefl y, Venables’s gift for understanding human nature in the pressurised context of elite football combined with the eye he had for the workings of the game to produce fl ourishes entirely in sync with his Venables opened England players’ eyes to the possiblity of playing like the continental powers Venables consoles Southgate after his penalty miss ▲ Terry Venables talks to Paul Gascoigne before England beat Spain 4-2 on penalties at Euro 96 POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES T erry Venables was so popular with the Euro 96 generation that senior England players consistently argued for his return to the nation’s radioactive tracksuit. Glenn Hoddle sacked? “Bring Terry back.” Kevin Keegan quits in the Wembley toilets? “Get Venners in again.” There are only echoes of it now, but for decades after 1966 English football was racked by ideological struggle over how the national game should be played. The Route One-ists favoured howitzer football: native aggression and directness with minimal elaboration. Idealists fought for the global mainstream of sophistication. In the middle of this battle stood Terence Frederick Venables, a myth to his enemies, a prophet without honour in his own land to his disciples. The messiah coach who would save English football from its insularity was never in one place long enough to fi le a body of work suffi ciently convincing to defeat his critics. His often chaotic and sometimes dubious attempts to prove himself a visionary businessman sabotaged his intermittent eff orts to be the coach for which his country yearned . But that craving was real, especially after the recidivism of the Graham Taylor years, when the progress made by Bobby Robson’s side at Italia 90 was torpedoed by Football Association mandarins with no interest in continuity of playing styles. If the meteor blaze of Paul Gascoigne exposed the fallacy that English spectators were content to see football played above head height, the entertainment conceived by Venables at the 1996 European Championship answered another deep wish. To be loved by an English crowd in the 1980s or 90s, a manager would ideally be streetwise, twinkly and positive: an entertainer with a swagger and the same level of tactical knowledge as the best in Europe. The applause for Venables at Premier League grounds on the day of his death spoke of an inbuilt admiration for the anti-establishment football romantic who took over Taylor’s ruined England and turned them into the swashbucklers who beat the Netherlands 4-1 at Euro 96 . Venables is miscast as a dreamer. Before that European Championship he said: “In all the debate about the state of English football, one factor is consistently forgotten. It is the character of the English player.” He gave artists and artisans equal value. The elusive, elastic running of Darren Anderton or Steve McManaman was enabled by the alpha-maledom of Tony Adams and Paul Ince and the certainty of Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham. Art for art’s sake, it was not. Don Howe, the defensive guru, was his right-hand man. In restaurants with the salt and pepper pots El Tel, as he came to be known in Barcelona, talked almost as much about shutting down the opposition as he did sweeping them off the pitch. The intellectual challenge of coaching and his talent for managing people – for making the job of the footballer intensely enjoyable – was the addiction that

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian • 39 own character: cunning, restless, exuberant, unapologetic. After Euro 96, nobody noticed that he had not nominated penalty takers for the semi-fi nal penalty shoot out against Germany beyond spot-kick No 5: an error that allowed Gareth Southgate to volunteer to go next, out of duty rather than judgment. Southgate failed to score, and Venables’s short reign of 24 England games from March 1994 to June 1996 was over. While lawyers salivated over fees from his legal entanglements, Euro 96 embedded itself in the English psyche as a brief enchantment, a rebirth for the national team and a riposte to the FA blazers who mistrusted Venables while trying to build a commercial revolution on the popularity of his 1996 team. Too distracted and fl ighty to be a statesman, Venables nevertheless worked best in the realm of the imagination – in inspiration – which isn’t something you would say of many England managers. There was a time when his 4-3-2-1 formation seemed so exotic that people called it the “Christmas tree ”. Now, it’s a standard team shape. If you didn’t like that one, Venables had others. He was never short of tricks. Premier League Watkins winner takes Villa just two points from the top Sometimes it is easy to be led by the scoreboard. This was a pulsating battle between two clubs energised by smart managerial appointments and there is a temptation to argue that the turning point came when Aston Villa somehow went in level at halftime, allowing Unai Emery to bend the game to his will with a double substitution that gave a previously rampant Tottenham more questions to answer during the second half. It was proactive management from Emery, who was too cute to be fooled by Pau Torres hauling Villa level in the seventh minute of added time. Doing nothing would have been complacent. Tottenham had dominated, Giovani Lo Celso putting them ahead, and they could have been out of sight at the end of the fi rst half. “Any other day we probably win comfortably,” Ange Postecoglou said. “It’s fi ne margins in football.” Postecoglou and Emery both thought of the missed chances. Given a chance to regroup the Villa manager duly responded, Youri Tielemans and Leon Bailey replacing Moussa Diaby and Matty Cash, and the decisiveness was most evident when the winner arrived in the 61st minute. It was Tielemans who played the pass when Ollie Watkins, who was keen to put a disappointing display for England behind him, scored the goal w ith which Villa took fourth place from Spurs and moved to within two points of the top of the table. Yet, while Watkins’ 12th goal of the season meant Villa set a club record of 22 Premier League wins in a calendar year, Emery refused to get carried away. There was no talk of a title challenge. Instead, Emery said seven clubs have a better chance than Villa of fi nishing in the top four. Perhaps that was why Postecoglou stayed positive after his side’s third consecutive defeat. The Australian would have been more concerned if Spurs, who will surely improve once key players return from injury, had played within themselves on a day when they remembered their former midfi elder and manager , Terry Venables, after he died at the age of 80. The action was frenetic from the start. Destiny Udogie and Dejan Kulusevski threatened for Spurs, the latter hitting the woodwork, while Kulusevski almost made it 2-0 and Son Heung-min had a goal disallowed. Spurs were overwhelming Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara in midfi eld and Emery’s use of Cash in an advanced position was not working. His only notable contribution was being booked for the foul that forced Rodrigo Bentancur to go off 32 minutes into the Spurs midfi elder’s fi rst start since Feb ruary. Yet Villa rallied. Spurs were vulnerable with Eric Dier unable to start and Ben Davies and Emerson Royal fi lling in for Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven in central defence. Villa thought they had levelled moments after Lo Celso’s goal, only for a VAR check to show Watkins had strayed offside when he headed Lucas Digne’s cross past Guglielmo Vicario. No matter. Villa’s crosses were causing damage and they soon had a straightforward equaliser. Douglas Luiz delivered a free-kick from the right, Davies lost Torres and the defender headed home. Not that Emery was happy. The mood changed when he brought Bailey on for his running and Tielemans for his  passing. Spurs were nervous without the ball, especially with Pierre-Emile Højbjerg a less eff ective shield than Bentancur. Bailey almost embarrassed Vicario and it was not long before Villa were ahead. Bailey found Watkins and after playing a one-two with Tielemans the striker ran through to squeeze a shot past Vicario. There were chances for Porro, Davies, Brennan Johnson and Højbjerg but Martínez was in inspired form. Villa had done enough. While Emery was grateful for the options on his bench, Spurs felt their lack of depth come back to bite them. Postecoglou was able to name only eight substitutes, including two goalkeepers, and he knew it was not going to be his day when Son had another goal disallowed. Villa looked dangerous from crossing positions. Torres, all alone from John McGinn’s free-kick, was aghast to send a free header wide. Spurs respected their attacking heritage. Before kick-off they remembered Venables, who won the FA Cup as a Spurs player in 1967 and as their manager in 1991, while the walk down memory lane continued when the teamsheets arrived: Postecoglou had channelled his inner Ossie Ardiles by selecting a back four of full-backs, named one defensive midfi elder and given Bryan Gil and Lo Celso their fi rst starts in the league this season. It was terrifi c fun. Spurs pushed, Gil testing Emiliano Martínez, and kept trying to breach Villa’s risky high line. Ezri Konsa was struggling at right-back and Villa conceded. Pedro Porro’s corner from the right bounced through a mass of bodies and the ball came to Lo Celso, alone on the edge of the area and free to score with a shot that went in off Diego Carlos. Head fi rst to revive Villa challenge Pau Torres nods in the leveller to get Villa back in the game after Lo Celso had put Spurs ahead JUSTIN SETTERFIELD/ GETTY IMAGES Tottenham 4-2-3-1 Vicario; Porro, Royal, Davies, Udogie; Bentancur (Højbjerg 32), Lo Celso (Véliz 86); Johnson, Kulusevski, Gil (Skipp 71); Son Subs not used Forster, Austin, Donley, Dorrington, Dier Aston Villa 4-4-2 Martínez; Konsa, Torres, Diego Carlos, Digne; Cash• (Bailey ht), Kamara•, Douglas Luiz, McGinn• (Ramsey 90+1); Diaby (Tielemans ht), Watkins• (Durán 90+2) Subs not used Olsen, Moreno, Lenglet, Dendoncker, Iroegbunam Referee Robert Jones Attendance 61,679 Tottenham 1 Lo Celso 22 Aston Villa 2 Torres 45+7, Watkins 61 Jacob Steinberg Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Ollie Watkins jumps for joy after hitting the winner to take Villa into the top four MARC ATKINS/ GETTY IMAGES High-fl yer Watkins on song again Possession Tottenham Hotspur Aston Villa 63% 37% Shots on target 7 5 Total attempts 18 15

••• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 40 Sport Terry Venables 1943-2023 around the shoulder, talked to players on their level, placed his gifts in the service of theirs. Perhaps this is why Venables fi ts no particular intellectual tradition or coaching dynasty, is not identifi ed with a particular tactic or style. But his infl uence runs a lot deeper than many assume. The famous 4-3-2-1 “Christmas Tree” formation he employed with England was repurposed to great eff ect by Aime Jacquet’s 1998 World Cup-winning French team. His dazzlingly original training sessions were revered by players and even copied by George Graham at Arsenal. Set-piece routines would be conceived and coached with all the rehearsed spontaneity of good music. At Barcelona he married English intensity with Catalan fl air, taking his squad on a gruelling training camp in Andorra, burying himself in videotape analysis, crafting the high-tempo pressing game that would shake a snoozing giant from its stupor and provide the blueprint for its later dominance. Among his most devoted students was a teenage La Masia midfi elder called Josep Guardiola, for whom the arrival of Venables was the catalyst for a lifelong fascination with English football. A decade later, at a time when the English game was still in thrall to the idea of the dominant, alpha-male centre-half, Venables trusted in a curious and cultured Aston Villa defender called Gareth Southgate. And in many ways the winding thread that took Southgate to the top of English football began with Venables, where he saw the way a skilful international coach could harness patriotism and loyalty to create a team greater than the sum of its parts. For all this, Venables was never really appreciated in his own time. Even at the apex of England’s Euro 96 bliss, the nation’s love for him was always somehow qualifi ed and conditioned. Partly this refl ects English football’s instinctive distrust of new ideas, its uneasy relationship with celebrity, its suspicion of the kind of unabashed self-belief that Venables embodied. The Football Association never really wanted him as England manager, tried to shackle him while he was in the job and then eff ectively forced him out. Perhaps this is why the highlight of Venables’s coaching career was also his swansong. He was only 53 when he left the England job but achieved precious little afterwards. In 1998 the allegations of fi nancial irregularity that had dogged him for years fi nally ended in 19 charges of serious misconduct and a seven-year ban on being a company director . Abortive spells with Australia, Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough and Leeds, an A brilliant man-manager and coach whose infl uence runs deeper than many assume ill-fated takeover of Portsmouth, an extended dotage on the Costa Blanca: none of this warrants anything more than a footnote. Of course, there was Tottenham as well. In a way, those six turbulent years at his childhood club between 1987 and 1993 encapsulated the paradox of Venables, the businessman and the romantic, the messiah and the mess-maker. Tottenham was all of Venables’s ambitions rolled into one: spine-tingling football and a seat on the board, a little boy’s playground where he could run amok on the training ground and the balance sheet. He rescued the club from bankruptcy, led the team to the 1991 FA Cup, fell out monumentally with his takeover partner, Alan Sugar, left under a cloud of fi nancial mismanagement allegations and scorched bridges. He wanted to do it all, and left with nothing. Three decades on, the obsession Continued from back page ▼ Terry Venables shows off with his skills during a Tottenham training session in August 1966 HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES ▲ Terry Venables enjoyed the height of his career as England manager The highlight of his career was also his swansong. He was only 53 when he left the England job

Monday 27 November 2023 The Guardian ••• 41 with Venables’s pecuniary aff airs feels somehow quaint in an age of state power, public investment funds and invisible billionaires. Yes, he bit off more than he could swallow. Yes, he made poor decisions, trusted the wrong people, bought too strongly into his own personal magnetism. Yes, he could be distastefully avaricious at times, seduced by the lure of a quick buck and a quick headline. No, he probably spread himself across too many roles to be truly great at any of them: player, coach, executive, celebrity. But at the heart of his many fl aws was a pure and simple vision: a vision of football as a single organic entity, from the muddy turf to the boardroom, run by people who loved football and cared about its future, fuelled by an entrepreneurial spirit and vats of self-belief. Where footballers really could do it all. It was a vision that died long before he did. Born 6 January 1943, Dagenham, Essex Playing career Chelsea apprentice made his senior debut in February 1960. After 202 appearances he joined Spurs in 1966 for £80,000, QPR for £70,000 in 1969 and Palace in 1974, where manager Malcolm Allison gave him a coaching role. Venables won two England caps. Managerial career 1976–1980 Crystal Palace 1980–1984 QPR 1984–1987 Barcelona 1987–1991 Tottenham 1994–1996 England 1997–1998 Australia 1998–1999 Crystal Palace 2000–2001 Middlesbrough (joint) 2002–2003 Leeds 2006–2007 England (assistant) Career timeline ▼ A young Pep Guardiola (bottom left) looks up at Barcelona manager Venables after their European Cup semi-fi nal win in 1986 COLORSPORT/SHUTTERSTOCK ▲ Venables outside the high court in 1993 during his legal battle with Tottenham’s then chairman, Alan Sugar SHUTTERSTOCK  Venables dons a newspaper’s promotional hat before Chelsea’s FA Cup tie with Spurs in February 1965 EVENING STANDARD/ HULTON ARCHIVE/ GETTY IMAGES ‘He was charming, he was witty, he was a friend’ Tributes paid to a beloved fi gure of English football ‘He was open-minded, forward-thinking, enjoyed life to the full and created a brilliant environment that allowed his players to fl ourish and have one of the most memorable tournaments in England history. A brilliant man who made people feel special .’ Gareth Southgate ‘Devastated to hear that Terry Venables has died. The best, most innovative coach that I had the privilege and pleasure of playing for. He was much more, though, than just a great manager, he was vibrant, he was charming, he was witty, he was a friend. He’ll be hugely missed. Sending love and condolences to Yvette and the family .’ Gary Lineker ‘So sorry to hear the news of my very fi rst England coach, Terry Venables. A man who gave me a chance to play for my country and became without a shadow of doubt my number one England coach in my whole career.’ Gary Neville ‘Extremely sad news the great Terry Venables has passed away. RIP Boss. I owe you so much. You were amazing.’ Alan Shearer ‘Dear Terry, you’ll be sadly missed, you told me I was your England Number One and I’ll never ever forget that, you were by far the best England manager and the nation will always remember the way you managed us at Euro ‘96 - great man, great loss.’ David Seaman ‘If you are asking about a person who embodies everything Tottenham has always wanted to be, it is Terry. He infl uenced Australia as well. He was the manager for the national team and almost got us to the World Cup.’ Ange Postecoglou ‘ He made my dream come true of representing my country which I could never really thank him enough for. Vivacious, funny, a superb coach, multi-talented, a man who lived life to its fullest. Rest in Peace, Terry.’ Stan Collymore ‘Terry was a brilliant coach to work with and I learned so much from him. He was very good tactically, but also a great motivator and communicator.’ Bryan Robson ‘Such a sad day, cheers boss xxxx’ Paul Gascoigne Gareth Southgate, who played under Venables at Euro 96, hailed him as ‘brilliant’ ▲ Gary Lineker won the FA Cup playing under Venables at Spurs Obituary Richard Williams on ‘one of the sharpest brains of his generation’ Journal, Page 6 

••• The Guardian Monday 27 November 2023 Out of the blue Everton’s angry protests silenced by Garnacho’s stunning strike Perfect ending Verstappen caps F1 title win with victory in fi nal race of season Page 36 Page 34 ing aps with al n a decade-long title drought and established them as a force again. For any England fan alive and sentient in 1996, he was the man who orchestrated the second great summer of love, a brocade of hazy memories and stinging emotions that stirred the national soul in a way only Alf Ramsey’s World Cup winners and Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses have done since. His teams always boasted great individual talent, from Paul Gascoigne to Bernd Schuster to Gary Lineker to Tony Currie. But Venables was a team builder fi rst and foremost, a coach who could make every player feel like they were the star. In an age of the dictatorial manager, Venables off ered an arm businessman and a romantic, a man steeped in football tradition who, nonetheless, saw the sport as a branch of the entertainment industry. He wanted to be famous and he wanted to be wealthy and he wanted to be loved and he wanted to win. In all these respects, it has to be said he failed as much as he succeeded. His business ventures frequently ran aground; his footballing successes were radiant but fl eeting; his popular appeal fl uctuated wildly over the decades. So what remains of this great English life, cut short at the age of 80? History has a habit of forgetting things such as win percentages and tabloid roastings and fi nancial infringements. What T here was the club singing career. The series of detective novels. The clothes shop in Chelsea. The board game. The range of women’s wigs. The chain of pubs. The ticket agency. Then there was the football, in all its guises: player, coach, manager, chief executive, owner, adviser, pundit. Terry Venables wanted to do it all, and it was the making of him, and it was the breaking of him. He was an only child with a short attention span and a ruthless personal ambition, and yet he was a people person at heart, a valued companion and a superb man-manager who built great footballing collectives. He was a A football romantic who made people feel happy Terry Venables, the former England manager who could inspire any player to believe they were a star, has died at 80 remains, ultimately, is the way he made people feel. At Queens Park Rangers he will be remembered as the man who put the pride back into a small west London club. At Barcelona they remember him as the maverick foreign coach who ended Players pay tribute to Terry Venables before the match between Tottenham and Aston Villa NIGEL FRENCH/GETTY/ALLSTAR ‘He turned England into swashbucklers at Euro 96’ Paul Hayward ‘The best, most innovative coach that I played for’ Gary Lineker Pages 38-41 Jonathan Liew 40 