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Top story: Billionaire unmasked in parliament
Hello, it’s Warren Murray delivering the last Briefing of British summer time for 2018.
Sir Philip Green has been identified as the businessman at the centre of an injunction linked to allegations known as the “British #MeToo scandal”. The Labour peer Peter Hain used parliamentary privilege to name him in the House of Lords.
“I feel it’s my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question, given that the media have been subject to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of a story which is clearly in the public interest,” Hain said. The statement ended days of speculation over a mystery businessman described by the Daily Telegraph as the subject of multiple sexual harassment and bullying allegations.
Green responded: “To the extent that it is suggested that I have been guilty of unlawful sexual or racist behaviour, I categorically and wholly deny these allegations.” He added that accusations and grievances by staff at his company, Arcadia, were investigated and any settlement reached remained confidential.
Hunt for bomber – The pipe bomb story in the US continues to develop. Overnight, federal agents searched a mail facility near Miami. The homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, said some of the packages went through the mail originating from Florida. On Thursday the FBI was also examining devices sent to former US vice-president Joe Biden and actor Robert De Niro. Officials said people thought to be at risk of receiving the devices had been identified, warned and given help screening their mail. The new discoveries mean that eight high-profile critics of Donald Trump have been sent a total of 10 packages so far.
Mega-rich still creaming it in – Billionaires made more money in 2017 than in any year in recorded history. The richest people on Earth increased their wealth by a fifth to $8.9tn (£6.9tn), according to a report by Swiss bank UBS. The bank put a positive spin on its findings by predicting that a wave of this enormous wealth will flow to good causes, either directly or through heirs who want to give something back to society. “There are 701 billionaires over the age of 70, whose wealth will transition to heirs and philanthropy over the next 20 years, given the statistical probability of average life expectancy.” More than 180 of the world’s richest people have signed up to the Giving Pledge, led by Bill Gates, to give at least half of their wealth to charity. Notable absentees from that list are the world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos ($146bn) and the richest person in the UK, the Brexiter and petrochemical magnate Sir Jim Ratcliffe (£21bn). Ratcliffe is preparing to leave Britain for tax-free Monaco just months after he was knighted for services to business and investment.
Scourge of ‘land banking’ – Developers are locking up land for more than 130,000 homes in England that have never been built. There are calls to punish developers that sit on land rather than build. Labour has considered forcing landowners to give up sites for a fraction of their value in an effort to slash the cost of council housebuilding. The shadow housing secretary, John Healey, said the government should offer “housing delivery contracts” where developers must build houses on a site at a certain rate or face fines. Greg Beales, from the Shelter housing charity, said: “We have become overly reliant on big developers who will only build as fast as they can sell, but many people simply can’t afford the homes they have to offer,” he said. “This has created a massive logjam, which can only be unblocked if we bring down the cost of land and start building the social homes which people actually need.”
Brexit leak – Questions have been raised about how a founder of Vote Leave was allowed access to secret draft Brexit papers. Daniel Hannan told fellow MEPs in an instant message seen by the Guardian: “I just saw an extract of the draft withdrawal agreement. Britain has decided to enfranchise all EU nationals (at least in England and NI – it’s devolved in Scotland and Wales).” He went on to complain it would “bolster the non-Tory electorate”. The contents of the draft withdrawal agreement are supposed to be a closely guarded secret among senior ministers and civil servants. Analysis suggests millennials will be up to £108,000 worse off over their lifetime because of Brexit. Meanwhile the leading economic forecaster NIESR has calculated that a hard Brexit would gouge £30bn out of the budget over five years, compared with leaving the EU with an agreement in place.
Google shielded execs – Google gave a $90m severance package to Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile software, but concealed details of a sexual misconduct allegation that triggered his departure, the New York Times has reported. Google protected three executives in sexual misconduct claims over the last decade, paying them millions while keeping silent about the allegations, the Times said. Google responded to the report by saying it has fired 48 people including 13 senior managers over sexual harassment claims in the past two years. Google also appears to have struggled to enforce its rules on workplace relationships. Several executives became involved with subordinate employees – one, Jennifer Blakely, a senior contract manager, agreed to leave Google after having a child with chief legal officer David Drummond. “Google felt like I was the liability,” Blakely told the New York Times.
Tick tock – Children, pets, circadian rhythm and work permitting, don’t forget to schedule an extra hour in bed on Sunday. The Briefing reckons you could do with it. The clocks go back at 2am with the end of British summer time (BST). Interestingly, as Martin Belam writes, the EU has invited member states to consider whether putting the clocks forward and back each year is worth it. But in soon-to-be Brexited Britain there appears to be little or no serious talk of sticking to GMT all year round.
Lunchtime read: HS2 project unearths ‘story of a nation’
Archaeologists on the HS2 rail link between London and Birmingham have begun work on the UK’s biggest ever excavation of its kind, cutting an “unprecedented” slice through 10,000 years of British history. The mammoth archaeological project, taking in more than 60 separate digs along the 150-mile route, is the first stage in construction of the rail line ahead of main works starting in 2019.
Early finds include a prehistoric hunter-gatherer site on the outskirts of London, a Romano-British town near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, and an Iron Age settlement in Staffordshire. Relics have been found including prehistoric flint tools and two late Victorian time capsules. “We are really going to be able to tell the story of a nation,” said Helen Wass, the project’s lead archaeologist. “There really is going to be something for everybody, because we do cover the entire range of history.”
Sport
Owen Farrell says he will run out holding hands with his fellow England co-captain Dylan Hartley if required and insists there is no risk of mixed messages when the pair start their new job-sharing arrangement at Twickenham next week. In yet another attempt to make the Tour de France a more open race, which will be seen as a further move to break Team Sky’s domination, the organisers are to push for the abolition of the use of power meters.
Caroline Wozniacki, who won the Australian Open in January, has revealed she has been suffering with rheumatoid arthritis for the past few months. In the Europa League, Danny Welbeck pounced to extend Arsenal’s winning sequence in all competitions to 11 with a gritty win over Sporting in Lisbon, while Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s hat-trick made a case to Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri in a 3-1 win over Bate Borisov. Lewis Hamilton is confident of closing out his fifth Formula One championship on Sunday but faces a real threat from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who won in Mexico last year. And the sort of abuse thrown at England footballer Karen Carney needs to be tackled by Instagram and co in the way that racist abuse at a game leads to a lifetime ban or a game behind closed doors, writes Eni Aluko.
Business
Asian shares have slipped again despite an earlier bounce on Wall Street that was helped by bargain-hunting and positive earnings from Microsoft Corp and Comcast. Investors will get more insight into how the American economy is doing later in the day when the US government reports on economic growth during the third quarter. Sterling has been trading around $1.281 and €1.127 overnight.
The papers
The front pages are dominated by the naming of Sir Philip Green under parliamentary privilege. The Guardian leads with his denial – “Philip Green: I am not guilty of unlawful sexual, racist behaviour” – and the front page also carries the government apology to immigrants, particularly Gurkhas and Afghans who helped British forces, for having to undergo DNA testing under the “hostile environment”. The Mail and the Express both declare Green “Named and shamed”, while the i goes with “Unmasked”.
The Telegraph, target of Green’s injunction, runs with “Sir Philip Green named as #MeToo scandal businessman”. The Times says “MPs call for Green to be stripped of knighthood” – its front also covers a call to stamp out dangerous university initiations. The FT joins its non-business peers in leading with the story – “Green named as businessman at centre of abuse allegations” – while also reserving space for a story about the share price falling at WPP. Business freesheet CityAM goes with “Top flop”. The Mirror’s headline is “The fall and fall of Sir Philip Green” with the “Sir” crossed out in red.
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