Roger Moore – Saint, Persuader and the suavest James Bond – dies aged 89

Pic:Roger Moore
Entertainment reporter(wp):
He was the epitome of the suave English gent, quipping sweatlessly in a bespoke three-piece suit, who enjoyed an acting career spanning eight decades. On Tuesday, Roger Moore’s children announced his death at the age of 89 in Switzerland, saying: “he passed away today ... after a short but brave battle with cancer”.

Moore was best known for playing the third incarnation of James Bond as well as his roles in hit shows The Saint and The Persuaders. He also devoted a lot of his time to humanitarian work, becoming a Unicef goodwill ambassador in 1991.

The actor was born in London in 1927 and, after working as a model in the early 50s, he signed a seven-year contract with MGM. His early movies weren’t particularly memorable, from Interrupted Melody to The King’s Thief, and it was a move to the small screen that brought Moore his first taste of success.

“During my early acting years I was told that to succeed you needed personality, talent and luck in equal measure,” Moore said to WT in 2014. “I contest that. For me it’s been 99% luck. It’s no good being talented and not being in the right place at the right time.”

His first break in TV came in romantic adventure Ivanhoe which was the start of a set of hit shows for Moore, including western Maverick and crime shows The Saint and The Persuaders. The success of The Saint gave Moore an opening in Hollywood yet the resulting spy movies failed to ignite the box office.

Moore had been approached to play the character of James Bond but scheduling conflicts with his television roles meant that he was never available. When Connery had stepped down from the role for good, Moore was asked again and made his first Bond film in 1973, the well-received Live and Let Die. He went onto star in another six films as 007 over a period of 12 years, making him the longest running actor in the role. When he finally retired from the role in 1985, he was 58.

“Being eternally known as Bond has no downside,” Moore told WT. “People often call me ‘Mr Bond’ when we’re out and I don’t mind a bit. Why would I?”

After handing over the reins to Timothy Dalton, Moore took a break from the spotlight and didn’t make another film until 1990. From then on, his acting work became sparse, including small roles in Spice World and Boat Trip.

In 1999, Moore was awarded a CBE which then became a knighthood in 2003, given to him for his charity work. Moore’s decision to become a Unicef goodwill ambassador was actually based on his friendship with Audrey Hepburn, who had also worked with the same charity.

“The knighthood for my humanitarian work meant more than if it had been for my acting,” Moore said to the WT. “I’m sure some people would say, “What does an actor know about world issues?” But [working for Unicef] I’ve become an expert on things from the causes of dwarfism to the benefits of breastfeeding. I feel very privileged.”

Moore also wrote two books about his time as Bond as well as two autobiographies, the most recent of which was 2014’s Last Man Standing. When asked by Time in 2012 who his favourite Bond was, he changed his mind from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.

“You can either grow old gracefully or begrudgingly,” he said to GQ in 2008. “I chose both.”

Moore is survived by his wife, Kristina Tholstrup, and three children.

Bombing Suspect named as Salman Abedi, US officials say

Crime reporter(wp/es):

The suspect behind the Manchester bomb attack has been identified by British authorities, US officials say.

The alleged bomber has been named as Salman Abedi in the United States, the Press Association have reported.

A blast just after 10.30pm on Monday shook the Manchester Arena as music fans, many of whom were young children, left an Ariana Grande concert at the 21,000 capacity venue.

Armed officers raided suspected bomber’s address in the city where the attack took place ordering residents indoors as they carried out a controlled explosion.

The Fallowfield property, where Abedi was registered as living, became the centre of the investigation into the atrocity outrage as detectives hunted those thought to be behind the blast.

Greater Manchester Police said a controlled explosion was carried out in Elsmore Road at around lunchtime on Tuesday.

It came as a 23-year-old man was also arrested by plain clothes police officers in south Manchester over the deadly bombing . 

As armed officers carried out the swoop, equipped with guns and body armour, those who live there described the "sizeable bang" they heard.

Some 22 people were killed and at least 59 injured as the explosion rocked the arena.

Among the dead are eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos, 18-year-old Georgina Calder and 26-year-old John Atkinson.

Families continued to search frantically for those still missing on Tuesday, many of whom were teenagers.

Chris Upton, headteacher at Tarleton Community Primary School, where the youngest victim was a pupil, said in a statement: “Saffie was simply a beautiful little girl in every aspect of the word. 

“She was loved by everyone and her warmth and kindness will be remembered fondly. 

“Saffie was quiet and unassuming with a creative flair.”

Georgina was described by friends as “kind and loving”.

Her friend Shelby Wharton, 17, told the Standard: “We were all praying for her to be found safely. Then we were told she had passed away.

“She was always very open, would talk to everyone. She was so nice. It does not feel real. I just pray for her family.”

Theresa May has said earlier on Tuesday that police knew the identity of the suicide bomber who deliberately chose a place where he could cause “maximum carnage” when he detonated a bomb at a pop concert in Manchester.

The Prime Minister said that police and security services were working to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a group. 

Mrs May was speaking outside Downing Street after chairing an emergency Cobra meeting in the wake of the attack.

She said it was “beyond doubt” that the people of Manchester and the UK had fallen victim to a “callous terrorist attack”.

But she added that the "cowardice of the attacker was met by the bravery of the emergency services and the people of Manchester".

Theresa May's hope of a big majority could slip from her grasp

Pic:Prime Minister Theresa May/ REUTERS
Political reporter(wp/es):

Before the Conservatives descend from “wobble weekend” to outright panic, they should remember: we have been here before. 

Every Tory victory since the Fifties has been preceded by at least one campaign poll pointing to defeat or a close finish. David Cameron confounded soothsayers like me two years ago; so did John Major in 1992 and Edward Heath in 1970. Margaret Thatcher had to navigate single polls suggesting she was in trouble.

We should therefore treat with caution latest polls from YouGov and Survation showing the Tory lead halving in a week to nine points. Until more polls are out we cannot be sure whether this is sampling tremor, a blip after the manifesto launch or a lasting shift in loyalties.

That said, Labour was gaining ground even before the headlines about the “dementia tax”, with both Ukip and the Lib Dems losing support. In contrast, the Tories average poll rating has stayed steady for four weeks.

st of my weekly projections combines the latest surveys, not in a crude “poll of polls” but allowing for the tendency of surveys over many years to overstate Labour and understate Tory support.  Without that adjustment I would project an 11-point Tory lead, not the 13 points in the table: I believe the big Labour bias in the polls two years ago has been reduced but not eliminated. But even that 13-point lead, identical to Tony Blair’s victory margin in 1997, would not quite give Theresa May the majority she really wants. 

I estimate the Tories would capture 29 seats from Labour (thanks to Ukip’s collapse since 2015) and six from the SNP. The Lib Dems could pick up a handful of Labour and Tory seats in strong “Remain” areas where there are few Ukip supporters for the Tories to squeeze.  The upshot is a Conservative majority of about 80 had the election been held at the end of last week.

For Mrs May to have the freedom to swat aside rebellions on a compromise Brexit deal she really needs a three-figure majority.  A month ago she was on course — unless she can halt Labour’s rise, it may slip from her grasp.

Church of England made stunning 17% return on investments in 2016

Pic:A focus on ethical investing has long been part of the Church of England’s mandate.
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The case for profitable ethical investing has been bolstered by the Church Commissioners for England, as the fund announced divine returns on its financial portfolio for 2016.

The body, which manages investable assets worth £7.9bn in order to “support the Church of England as a Christian presence in every community”, said it had smashed targets by making a 17.1% return on investments during 2016 – figures which will be the envy of many high-profile figures in the fund-management industry.

In 2016, Woodford Equity Income – which is run by the UK’s best-known manager, Neil Woodford – returned 3.2% compared with an 8.8% gain for the Investment Association’s UK equity income sector average, according to the financial website MoneyObserver.com.

The church’s fund’s outperformance over the past decade has slightly outpaced even the Yale Endowment fund, which is rated by the Financial Times (paywall)as the most admired in the sector.

The Church Commissioners, whose target is making a return of inflation plus five percentage points, said it had been partly aided in 2016 by sterling’s weakness after the Brexit vote, with the fall in the value of the pound accounting for about half the gains made on its equity portfolio.

First church estates commissioner Sir Andreas Whittam Smith said: “Contributing to this stellar out-turn was a strong showing by global equities (+32.9%), partly reflecting the depreciation of sterling. Equally helpful were our interests in private credit strategies (+33.1%), private equity (+26.1%) and timberland (+24.3%). The combined property portfolios delivered a creditable 11.6% in a relatively weak market environment.

“Consistency has truly been a guiding principle for the fund. Our historic performance over a 30-year period shows annual growth of 9.6% per annum, despite periods of turbulence in the financial markets and our own portfolio – an average of 6% per annum ahead of inflation.”

The Church Commissioners said returns meant it had contributed £230.7m to the mission of the Church of England, although it admitted this was “only around 15% of the church’s overall income – most funding comes from the extraordinary generosity of parishioners”.

The body said it had also been promoting responsible investment, including being “instrumental in filing climate disclosure resolutions at [mining groups] Anglo American, Glencore and Rio Tinto” and continuing “to vote against the majority of remuneration reports”.

Richard Saunders, its head of equities, added: “We have always argued that ethical investing does not put us at a disadvantage – so I’m not going to argue it puts us at an advantage [on the back of these returns]. We have a strong ethical approach and invest over the long term, which we think will be successful. We look to harvest returns over a long period.”

A focus on ethical investing has long been part of the body’s mandate, although some of its investment picks have still provoked debate.

In 2012, it sold its shares in Rupert Murdoch’s media group after the phone-hacking scandal. However, the following year the church’s pension fund was found to have taken an indirect stake in controversial payday lender Wonga, while it has also invested in areas of finance that many view as contentious such as hedge funds.

More than 2.3m people have registered to vote since election was called

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About 2.3 million people have registered to vote since the general election was called just under five weeks ago, with registrations coming at a faster rate than before the Brexit referendum, the Electoral Commission has said.

This does not necessarily equate to the same number of new voters, as some of the applications could be duplicates from people already registered, said Emma Hartley, head of campaigns for the commission.

Would-be voters have until midnight on Monday to register if they want to vote on 8 June. Applications can be made online in a matter of a few minutes, although people in Northern Ireland have to physically hand in the completed form to a local election office.

“Since the general election was announced on 18 April more than 2.3m applications to register have been submitted,” Hartley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

She said: “We saw similar levels of registration ahead of the referendum, and ahead of the 2015 general election, but because we’re working with such a shorter timeframe ahead of the 8 June general election, it’s a lot of applications within a shorter number of days.”

Some of these would be duplicate applications, Hartley said, but added: “It is a large number of people who are applying. We’ll know the final numbers about the size of the electorate after the polls.”

An estimated 7 million eligible voters are not registered, and Hartley said those most likely to be disenfranchised were younger people or those who had moved recently.

“We know that age and population mobility are the biggest variables that contribute to levels of under-registrations,” she said. “It’s more likely that people who are 34 years old or younger that are not registered – it’s around 30% of that population, compared to only 4% of those aged 55 and older who aren’t registered.

“With population mobility, we know that people who have moved home within the last year tend not to be registered to vote because it’s something that people don’t get around to doing when they have to do a lot of other things when they’re moving house.”

Simon Wooley, the director of Operation Black Vote, which seeks to encourage people from black and minority ethnic communities to engage more closely in politics, said the system of individual voter registration – changed in 2014 from household registration – was “much more complicated than it needs to be”.

He called for a system in which people are automatically registered to vote, saying: “Why would we want to undermine our democracy, with so many people not engaging?”

Wooley said his organisation often found a lack of connection to the wider political system. “A lot of people that we speak to up and down the country say that our institutions don’t look like us, sound like us, and don’t have plans to tackle those persistent inequalities that turn people off,” he said.

May school lunch cut ‘would hit 900,000 children of struggling families’

Pic:Theresa May has opted to end free school meals for infants
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About 900,000 children from struggling families will lose their right to free school lunches under a cut unveiled in the Conservative manifesto.

The total includes more than 600,000 young children recently defined as coming from “ordinary working families”, according to analysis for the Observer by the Education Policy Institute.

It means that the surprise measure risks undermining Theresa May’s pledge to prioritise families that are “just about managing” – those who are in work, but struggling to make ends meet.

May opted to end universal free school lunches for infants, introduced under the coalition government, and replace them with free breakfasts. The money saved will be used to see off a looming Tory rebellion over school funding.

The move risks punishing exactly the kind of families the prime minister has promised to help and will cost families about £440 for every child hit by the cut. It is likely to save about £650m a year. However, the Conservatives pointed to recent evidence that free breakfasts were more cost-effective, adding that the poorest children would still receive a free lunch.

After a week in which the parties released their election manifestos, more Tory candidates expressed private reservations about their party’s plan to make people pay for their old-age home care through their estates.

With the large Tory poll lead closing slightly in recent days, some nervous candidates are urging the leadership to make another attempt to explain the policy to voters, while others are planning to lobby for concessions after the election. May has insisted it is a fair measure that ensures only those with estates worth more than £100,000 will pay.

Jeremy Corbyn attempted to exploit the row by accusing the Tories of provoking a “war between generations”. He accused May of drawing up an “anti-pensioner package” that weakened protections for the state pension, removed the winter fuel allowance from many and forced thousands to pay huge amounts for home care. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, said May’s social care policy would “go down as her poll tax”.

The decision to axe universal free school lunches for infants comes only three years after they were introduced by Nick Clegg, the former deputy PM.

The Education Policy Institute’s analysis found that about 100,000 children who are in relative poverty will no longer receive a free meal under May’s proposals. It found that an additional 667,000 children defined as coming from “ordinary working families” would no longer receive a free lunch.

Overall, its research concludes that about 900,000 children who are either eligible for the pupil premium supplement or classed as being in ordinary working families will lose the right to a free hot lunch.

A Conservative source questioned the figures, claiming they had been “cobbled together” by an organisation led by a former Lib Dem minister, David Laws. A Tory spokesman said: “We don’t think it is right to spend precious resources on subsidising school meals for better-off parents. So instead we will give that money to headteachers, to spend on pupils’ education instead.

“We will make sure all those who need it most still get free lunches – and will offer a free school breakfast to every child in every year of primary school. So the most disadvantaged children will now get two free school meals a day rather than one.”

Labour has pledged to extend the free school lunches policy to all primary school children. It plans to pay for the £1bn-a-year measure by applying VAT to the fees paid for private education.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “It is always disappointing when a policy is abandoned after only being given a few years to bed in. This sort of chopping and changing actually costs more money in the long run.”

However, there has also been support for free breakfasts. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that free breakfasts improved the performance of young children and were likely to be “more cost-effective”.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of Association of School and College Leaders, said evidence supported a school lunch system in which “children on free school meals have them discreetly paid for while children whose parents can pay should do so”.

The government has defined ordinary working families as those that are not eligible for the pupil premium, but still have below-average incomes. The pupil premium is aimed at a poorer group. It includes any child who has been eligible for free school meals at any point in the past six years because of their family’s low income.

Natalie Perera, executive director of the Education Policy Institute, said: “Around 900,000 children from low-income families will lose their eligibility for free school meals under these proposals. Around two-thirds of those children are from what the government considers to be ‘ordinary working families’.

“The typical annual cost for an ordinary working family would increase under these proposals to around £440 for each child aged between four and seven.”

Boris Johnson wrongly claims £350m NHS promise at manifesto launch

Political reporter(wp):

Boris Johnson has suggested Theresa May promised to give the NHS an extra £350m a week at the launch of the Conservative party manifesto, when neither she nor the document made any such promise.

The foreign secretary was pressed on why there was no pledge from the Tories to use any proceeds from Brexit to fund the NHS, when handing over £350m a week was a flagship promise of his campaign to leave the European Union.

Asked on ITV’s Peston on Sunday why the sum was not in the manifesto, Johnson said: “It is. It is. Theresa May, she said it at the launch of the manifesto … She said we are going to take back control.”

ITV News’ political editor, Robert Peston, said: “Where?”, but Johnson went straight into a speech about how the election was a contest between May and Jeremy Corbyn as leaders.

At the manifesto launch, May made a promise to “take back control of [EU] structural funds and use them to strengthen our union and reduce inequalities between our communities”.

However, there was no mention of any of this money specifically going to the NHS.

A senior Conservative source said Johnson was saying a commitment to take money back from the EU and spend it on services such as the NHS was in the manifesto but he had been cut off several times by the interviewer.

Since the referendum, she and her cabinet ministers have repeatedly been challenged about why they are not honouring the pledge that was emblazoned on a bus used to transport Johnson on the campaign trail.

The former leave strategist Dominic Cummings has suggested it was instrumental in helping the leave campaign win the contest.

Vote Leave Watch, a group pressing for the pledge to be honoured, has accused Johnson of “taking the public for fools”.

The foreign secretary was also caught sneaking a look at Peston’s questions before their Sunday morning TV encounter. Peston later tweeted a series of pictures showing Johnson rifling through his notes while he was questioning other guests.

However, there was no mention of any of this money specifically going to the NHS.

A senior Conservative source said Johnson was saying a commitment to take money back from the EU and spend it on services such as the NHS was in the manifesto but he had been cut off several times by the interviewer.

Since the referendum, she and her cabinet ministers have repeatedly been challenged about why they are not honouring the pledge that was emblazoned on a bus used to transport Johnson on the campaign trail.

The former leave strategist Dominic Cummings has suggested it was instrumental in helping the leave campaign win the contest.

Vote Leave Watch, a group pressing for the pledge to be honoured, has accused Johnson of “taking the public for fools”.

The foreign secretary was also caught sneaking a look at Peston’s questions before their Sunday morning TV encounter. Peston later tweeted a series of pictures showing Johnson rifling through his notes while he was questioning other guests.

Separately, Corbyn, the Labour leader, said that if he gained power he would put in place a migration policy based on the needs of society.

He added immigration would “probably be lower” but he did not want to make predictions. “Freedom of movement obviously ends when you leave the European Union because it’s a condition of the membership,” he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday.

He added: “I want there to be fair immigration based on the needs of our society. That is the proper way of approaching it.”

Pressed further on the issue, Corbyn went on: “I want us to have a society that works and I cannot get into a numbers game because I don’t think it works.”

In a trickier section of the interview, the Labour leader was repeatedly asked to condemn the IRA, following a fresh string of newspaper stories about his links to figures in the militant group in the 1980s. He said: “Bombing is wrong, of course all bombing is wrong and of course I condemn it … I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process.

“In the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution in Ireland. It clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British army at that time.

“Therefore you have to seek a peace process. You condemn the violence of those that laid bombs that killed large of numbers of innocent people and I do.”

Asked to condemn the IRA without equating it to the deaths caused by British security services, Corbyn said: “And there were loyalist bombs as well, which you haven’t mentioned. I condemn all the bombing by the both loyalists and the IRA.”

In another Sky interview, Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, also came under pressure in a interview over his views on abortion, which he described in an interview 10 years ago as morally wrong.

Asked five times whether he still believed it was wrong, Farron stressed he believed women should have access to abortion which is “legal and safe”.

Told by Ridge he had not been clear on the question of morality, he replied: “Well, I believe women should have access under law which is safe and legal, and I think that’s the critical issue - do you believe people should be able to make that choice under law, and do you believe the law as it stands is right and the science that dictates, or rather underlines, that law is right. I do believe that, I did then and I do now.”