RAF hero soars again – 102 years old, doing 210 knots flying a Spitfire


Eleanor Steafel

The Telegraph
Mon, 5 February 2024 

Jack Hemmings joined the RAF in 1940 at 18. It has been 84 years since the grandfather-of-three, first took to the skies - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph

It’s almost impossible for younger generations to imagine the skies being filled with the roar of Spitfires, let alone fathom the idea of signing up to go to war.

Jack Hemmings, 102, doesn’t recall feeling frightened when he joined the RAF in 1940 at 18 – he trusted the training would prepare him for whatever the war threw at him.

Going to war “made me grow up a bit, I suppose”, said Jack, a Second World War veteran and former RAF Squadron Leader, who on Monday became the oldest pilot ever to fly a Spitfire.

A bomber pilot, he was stationed in Kolkata with 353 Squadron to protect the Bay of Bengal and the coast of Burma (as it was then known) until 1946, and received the Air Force Cross for “exemplary gallantry while flying”.

Last month, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff, implored ministers to “mobilise the nation”, suggesting the country’s defences could be strengthened by bringing back conscription, which was suspended in 1960.

What could younger generations learn from that of Jack? “Who’s to say that our generation was any better than theirs?” he said, speaking before his flight in the Heritage Hangar at Biggin Hill airfield. “But by and large I think the present generation are a bit scatty.”

Jack Hemmings in the Heritage Hangar at Biggin Hill airfield

 - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph

He added: “Going to war, your mind is concentrating on what you’re doing, which is your part in the war […] You apply your mind to your task and do it as well as you can.”

Back then, you relied on your squadron and your training to get you through, he said. “You’re trained to meet all circumstances. If there’s a new circumstance, that’s what you’re trained for – to work out what the problem is, put it right and get back.”

On the airfield at Biggin Hill, as the Spitfire roared into life on Monday, you could feel the judder of its powerful Merlin engine. But as soon as you take flight, Jack said, soaring into the air at 210 knots, aiming for the clouds, it’s a different story – there is a great sense of peace that comes with being airborne. “Once you’re on the ground and away from controlled airspace, the sky is yours, you get all sorts of emotions.

“Sometimes it’s just pleasure at a lovely outlook. Other times it’s relief when you maybe weren’t quite sure where you were.”
Now it was his turn to find out what all the fuss was about

It has been 84 years since Jack, now a grandfather-of-three, first took to the skies.

He might not have been fazed by much at 18, but at 102, you could have forgiven him for being somewhat daunted by the prospect of clambering into a cockpit on a freezing, windswept airfield and taking flight.

But as soon as the signal came to board, he bounded out of his wheelchair and strode towards the aircraft in his khaki flying suit with the vim and vigour of a man at least 20 years younger.

In 1940, he would have rolled his eyes at the Spitfire lads, he said, deeming them “fighter boys” and “kids”.

Now, it was his turn to find out what all the fuss was about.

Speaking before the flight, he wondered if he might find a Spitfire – a slip of a thing compared to the aircraft he flew in the war – easier to handle.

“I expect I’ll find it vastly more manoeuvrable but of course there will be limits on the manoeuvres we can do. I’m sure they’ll want to keep it fairly straight and level.”
Jack is one of just two remaining members of his squadron

Not that he planned to pass up the chance for a few aerobatics – it seems you’re never too old to use the heavens as a playground. “I love aerobatics,” he admitted, smiling broadly. “I suppose it’s the pleasure of starting off straight and level and upsetting that situation and putting it right.”

Taking to the skies in the two-seater Spitfire - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph

This year will mark 80 years since the Battle of Kohima – the turning point of the Japanese offensive into India, where Jack was stationed. He is one of just two remaining members of his squadron.

Did he expect his former comrades to be in his thoughts when he took to the skies? He is far too pragmatic for all that. When you’re in the air, he said, “you’re busy doing what you’re supposed to do”.

“I’m not going to sit there and think of other times. This time is the important one.”

Monday’s flight was by no means the first time in 80 years Jack had been airborne. He bought a small aircraft after his retirement. On his 100th birthday in 2021, he performed an aerobatic display in a Slingsby Firefly – a surprise gift from his wife, Kate.

Mr Hemmings described his flying skills as 'a bit rusty. Not surprisingly, as I am rusty' - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph

In 2022, he flew a 1947 Gemini – the same model he took to Africa in 1948 in what was the first British mission to assess humanitarian needs in isolated communities dotted across the continent.

Setting out with a map, a compass and only the River Nile as their guide, he and his friend Stuart King, who had been at D-Day, visited more than 100 mission outposts which were separated from vital resources by jungles and deserts.
Jack wore a look of pure contentment on his face

They crashed on a Burundi mountainside; a moment Jack (who once nicknamed himself “Crasher Jack”) remembers vividly.

“The surprising thing was we smacked the ground at 100 miles an hour, into a totally undeveloped hillside.

“We could have gone straight into an enormous boulder or tree but we went into rough ground and didn’t burst into flames and the lid in the door opened quite simply.

“Neither of us was injured except I had a bruise on my thigh where it hit the throttle and Stuart had a cut on his little finger. It couldn’t have been more minimal.”

They founded Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), the world’s largest humanitarian air service, which still flies all over the world delivering aid and medical help in low income countries.

Coming into land after his 30-minute flight, Jack wore a look of pure contentment on his face.

His co-pilot, Barry Hughes, had handed over the controls mid-flight. “I don’t think he’s lost his touch,” said Mr Hughes.

How did Jack find it? “Absolutely delightful,” he said, beaming as the propellers slowed and the roof of the cockpit lifted.

“Slightly heavier than I expected. We were flying at about 210 knots which is faster than I used to fly in my Air Force days. I was a bit rusty. Not surprisingly, as I am rusty.”

Paris Olympics chief faces legal probe over pay: source

Alexandre HIELARD
Tue, 6 February 2024 


The probe into Tony Estanguet adds to the legal woes of the organising committee (Bertrand GUAY)

French investigators have opened a legal probe into the pay of Paris Olympics chief organiser Tony Estanguet, a legal source said Tuesday, in an embarrassing development six months before the Games begin.

The enquiry by magistrates specialised in financial crimes began "last week" and will look into the manner in which Estanguet receives his pay as head of the organising committee, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The triple gold medal-winning Olympic canoeist had so far been spared the legal problems that have embroiled other members of the Paris Olympics organising team.

His annual remuneration of 270,000 euros ($290,000) before tax and bonuses was made public in 2018 after a furore over reports that he would receive almost double that amount.

But according to revelations in the investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchaine last October, Estanguet uses his own company to bill the organising committee monthly, instead of drawing a salary.

The arrangement is to avoid a salary cap imposed on charities with the same status as the organising committee.

A spokesperson for the committee said it was "astonished" by news of the investigation, given that Estanguet's package had been approved by the board and officials in the economy ministry.

The probe is a major blow for the 45-year-old, the public face of the Paris Olympics, who is seeking to focus attention on preparations for the sporting events at the July 26-August 11 Games.

The Olympics have been repeatedly tarnished by corruption in the past, either over the manner in which the Games were awarded or through the lucrative construction and services contracts that are part of the event.

- Legal woes -

The Paris organising committee was already the subject of three separate investigations into the possible misuse of public money and favouritism in the awarding of contracts.

The offices of the committee and Games infrastructure group Solideo have been searched by police, as have the homes of two other senior figures in the organising committee, Etienne Thobois and Edouard Donnelly.

Those cases revolve in part around sports management or events companies founded by senior Games staff before they started working for the Paris 2024 organising committee.

Around 20 different contracts are under the microscope, totalling tens of million of euros, one judicial source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

France's Anti-Corruption Agency had flagged possible problems with Estanguet's pay arrangement in a report in 2021 because of the organising committee's status as a charity.

The spokesperson said that his pay had been approved by the organisation's pay committee, composed of independent experts, and approved by the Economic and Financial Controller General in the economy ministry.

Given that Estanguet usually chairs the board, it had met without him when discussing his remuneration, the spokesperson said.

- Nearly ready -

Organisers of Paris 2024 have been determined to showcase a different sort of Olympics, shorn of the common problems of vast over-spending, wasteful infrastructure investment, and corruption.

The 2016 Rio Olympics left the city near bankrupt, while large-scale graft allegations shocked the general public.

The former Brazilian Olympics boss and the governor of the city were both convicted afterwards.

Several businessmen have also been found guilty of bribing a Tokyo Olympics committee member in a scandal that soured the mood over the 2020 Games held in the Japanese capital a year later due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the legal problems, the Paris Games appear broadly on track, with almost all of the main building work finished and the budget over-spend relatively small compared with past editions.

This week will see the committee unveil the medal designs, while a brand new venue which is set to host the basketball and rhythmic gymnastics will open its doors at the weekend.

The athletes' village is set to be inaugurated by President Emmanuel Macron on February 29.

The French sports world, including football, rugby and tennis, has been shaken by a string of scandals in recent years.

The head of the French Football Federation, Noel Le Graet, stepped down last year after accusations of sexual harassment, while the head of the rugby federation was convicted of corruption.

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How Orwell fared in Burma’s imperial police – and the bedroom

Nakul Krishna
Tue, 6 February 2024 


Burma Sahib is Paul Theroux's 30th novel - Hamish Hamilton

Paul Theroux’s 30th novel, about George Orwell’s years as a policeman in Burma, is part of a well-populated genre: Tan Twan Eng on Somerset Maugham in Malaysia, Colm Tóibín on Thomas Mann in America, Damon Galgut on EM Forster in India. Burma Sahib also joins the many books published last year to mark the 120th anniversary of Orwell’s birth, of which the ones that have provoked the most attention are DJ Taylor’s Orwell: The New Life and Anna Funder’s Wifedom, the latter a decidedly unsympathetic portrait of Orwell as husband.

Theroux’s Orwell, 19 years old when the book begins, is a more likeable figure. He still goes by the name his parents gave him: Eric Arthur Blair. Not long out of Eton, he opts for the Imperial Police over university, and in 1922 ships out to Burma, full of romantic notions acquired from Kipling. Orwell ends up serving there for a little over five years, over which period he acquires the sense of writerly vocation and the anti-imperialist political convictions that make it impossible for him to carry on.

Orwell’s time in Burma was the basis for at least three pieces of published writing. The longest of them, the 1934 novel Burmese Days, is gripping, if a trifle melodramatic. If Theroux’s speculations are right, that novel’s main character John Flory is a composite of real figures whom Orwell knew in Burma. The two widely anthologised essays that drew on Orwell’s Burmese experiences – ‘A Hanging’ and ‘Shooting an Elephant’ – are the basis of two of Theroux’s best chapters. (The veracity of the latter essay has been questioned, but Theroux evidently believes that Orwell’s famous account of the episode was substantially true.)

Beyond that, even Taylor’s dense biography admits that “much of Orwell’s time in the East is shrouded in mystery”. But the mystery gives Theroux just the gaps he needs for a story that is both credible as history and enjoyable as fiction. Theroux’s Blair has many of the traits of the more familiar mature Orwell, chief among them a desire not to be thought eccentric.

Despite his growing cynicism about the imperial project, some of his bitterest thoughts are directed at the “pansy Left”, whose convictions about the evils of imperialism betray their ignorance of the violence and disorder of Burmese society. And even as he obeys his superiors’ orders, Orwell is cultivating a secret inner life, fed by his reading (Kipling, Wells, Maugham, London, Huxley, Forster and Lawrence), his study of Asian languages, and his careful attention to his tropical surroundings, as he learns to tell a peepul tree from a neem, a teak from a tamarind.

George Orwell - ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Theroux is not shy about probing into Orwell’s private life. Taylor’s biography stops at noting that the unpublished poetry from those years suggest that “bought sex was a subject of which Orwell possessed a more-than-abstract knowledge”. Theroux is much less coy. His Blair, a teenager struggling to grow a moustache when the book begins, manages to sustain multiple sexual relationships with his Burmese housemaids, the “tarts” at local brothels, and the well-read wife of a fellow colonial.

The prose in these passages courts embarrassment (“her perfumed breasts, and the slippery tang of her sex”). And while Theroux’s ear for English speech is generally acute, there are moments of anachronism and Americanism: would a young man steeped in the language and literature of an English public school really use the word “snitch” rather than “sneak”?

But against these lapses we must hold up Theroux’s many fine passages. Here, for instance, is young Orwell being woken up by the crowing of a rooster: “the morning sun slatted through the bamboo blinds and gilding the folds of his mosquito net”. And here is Orwell taking in the full sensory blast of Rangoon: “the tickle of manure, as the street was thick with horse-drawn carts; the reek of sweat from the soaked backs of hurrying barefoot man pulling rickshaws… the stink of hot oil and burnt food.” Admirers of Theroux’s travel writing will find many such examples of his old capacity for precise lyricism – restrained, no doubt, by Orwell’s own stern example.

Burma Sahib is published by Hamish Hamilton at £20. To order your copy for £16.99, call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books

AUSTRALIA
Roger Davies died with nine broken ribs. Police deemed his death non-suspicious and sent him to a pauper’s grave


Christopher Knaus

 Chief investigations correspondent

GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA
Sun, 4 February 2024 

Family photos of Roger Davies, a homeless man whose body was found, showing signs of violence, in an abandoned house three years after he died

Composite: Supplied

LONG READ

In the shell of an abandoned house, beneath cobwebs spun across blackened walls, the skeleton of Roger Davies lay forgotten amid the rubbish.

Davies had come to this burnt-out home in Granville, western Sydney, seeking shelter, a place to squat alongside other rough sleepers fleeing Australia’s broken housing system.

Instead the 42-year-old army veteran found a shocking and premature end, an experience common to Australians experiencing homelessness.

Davies’ body then lay on the ground floor of that abandoned house for three long years, 140 metres down the road from the local police station.

Passersby noticed an overpowering smell but did nothing and Davies was discovered only by chance in April 2015 when a woman arrived to scavenge through the refuse.

She found Davies, still dressed in the blue shirt and brown pants he died in, a watch hanging loosely from his skeletal wrist.

Upstairs, police would later find an unanswered plea for help: an application for emergency housing filled out in Davies’ name about one month before he is believed to have died.

In shaky handwriting, Davies told the department he’d been seeking public housing for years and was now becoming desperate.

“Getting robbed all the time,” he wrote, indicating he was facing “violence and/or harassment from another person” in the squat house.

The deaths of Australians experiencing homelessness are largely invisible. No government in the country attempts to count or understand what is driving them, putting us at odds with other western nations.

In an attempt to shine a light on this crisis, Guardian Australia has spent 12 months identifying and investigating 627 homelessness deaths.

The investigation involved analysis of more than a decade of non-public death reports to state and territory coroners, a review of inquest findings since 2010, and dozens of interviews with rough sleepers, victims’ families, researchers and advocates.

The Guardian has found that, on average, people experiencing homelessness are dying at an average age of 44. That is vastly premature and a life expectancy gap of more than three decades.

It is the first time the life expectancy gap has been measured at a national level and, despite the data’s limitations, the finding is broadly in line with studies in Perth and Sydney.

The investigation also found suicide and overdose, known as deaths of despair, are primary drivers of death. Researchers say such deaths are inextricably linked to the despair and hopelessness of homelessness.

The investigation identified a wide range of systemic failings contributing to deaths, including gaps in health and mental healthcare, the critical undersupply of public housing and failures of the justice system.

A postmortem examination would find Davies sustained fractures to nine ribs about the time of his death.

Despite the signs of potential violence and Davies’ handwritten complaints, police records show officers formed the opinion there was “no evidence of suspicious circumstances”.

“There is an absence of any severe physical injury, large amounts of blood loss, known conflicts or possible motive for any person to seriously harm the deceased,” the investigators wrote.

Instead, police formed the opinion Davies had overdosed, despite no record drug paraphernalia being found at the scene and no toxicology report or other supporting evidence.

The investigators said they had based their opinion on his “history”.

Davies’ family were told nothing of his death for more than two years, neither by police nor the state government.

Police knew Davies was from Adelaide and had the names and dates of birth of his brother and sister, but documents suggest they first called their counterparts in South Australia seeking a family contact number on 20 November 2017, two and a half years after the body was found.

“He had been put in a pauper’s grave by the time we found out … before we even found out that he was deceased,” said Davies’ sister, who asked not to be named.

“There was no closure, there’s never going to be any closure, and up until now with you, there’s no one who’s cared.”
An invisible crisis

Nobody really knows how many rough sleepers are dying in Australia. It’s a hidden crisis – there is simply no national data.

Guardian Australia has spent 12 months identifying and investigating 627 homelessness deaths like Davies’ using 10 years’ worth of non-public death reports to state coroners, an analysis of inquest findings since 2010 and interviews with dozens of homeless Australians, victims’ families, frontline support workers and researchers.

The findings are stark.

They show Australians experiencing homelessness are dying prematurely by a margin of more than three decades. The average age of death is 44.

Suicides and overdoses are major drivers. They accounted for one-fifth and one-third of the 627 deaths, respectively.

Researchers and homelessness groups describe such cases as “deaths of despair” and say they are inextricably linked to the trauma and loss of hope associated with homelessness.

Indigenous Australians were also vastly overrepresented among the 627 deaths. About 20% involved an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person.

Other rough sleepers are victims of extreme violence.

They have been found dead in parks and squats, and on the street shot, stabbed or bashed to death, including one man who was found in the Domain, in the centre of Sydney, with slash wounds to his neck, and a Tasmanian man who was bashed horrifically and set on fire while sleeping rough, an attack later connected to his sudden epilepsy death.Interactive

In many cases, people experiencing homelessness died in ways that were either preventable or directly linked to systemic failures across the housing, health and justice sectors.

In two cases identified by the Guardian, rough sleepers presented to hospital as suicidal, associating their suicidal ideation with their lack of housing.

Medical notes in one of the cases show a man known by the pseudonym of Channa, a 26-year-old from the northern rivers in New South Wales, told hospital staff: “It is hard to find a reason to live when you have nowhere to live.”

No emergency housing was available and Channa was discharged. He was found dead a short time later in a suspected suicide.

In four other cases, rough sleepers died after police enforcement of minor public order offences, such as drinking in public or public nuisance, a practice experts have long urged against. The arrests either led to the use of force or to deaths in custody.

These are people, like you and me, and they deserve to be treated equally and with compassion

Nick Ware, lawyer

In Western Australia, Guardian Australia has spoken to two Indigenous families who say their loved ones died by suicide after being evicted from public housing.

Davies’ case and many of the 627 deaths investigated by the Guardian are policy failure writ large, the horrific reality of Australia’s inaction on housing its most vulnerable and providing them with wraparound support.

Documents show both federal and state governments have failed to take even the most basic step to investigate the crisis.

In 2021 governments across the country rebuffed or ignored requests from the homelessness sector to establish an annual count of homelessness deaths, a measure adopted by other western nations to inform policy responses and drive accountability.

For Davies’ family, this lack of interest is not new.

Davies’ sister remembers her brother as kind and protective, someone who lost his way after family trauma and discharge from the military.

She says police showed little interest in investigating his death, despite clear evidence of perimortem rib fractures and his handwritten complaints of robberies and violence.

Police documents show they declined to send items found at the scene to forensics and only interviewed two rough sleepers who had a past association with Davies before arriving at the conclusion that he overdosed.

“They wanted it to just go away,” Davies’ sister said. “I got told at the start that pretty much there was no foul play. And then it would seem that that’s not the case.

“It didn’t really seem like it mattered much … And that’s not just the police, that’s also with the media.

“No one really gave a shit.”
‘It was a dark, dark place’

When Beatrice Christian became homeless in Perth in 2018, she sought safety in numbers. She and eight other rough sleepers stuck together, watching each other’s backs.

Christian, a Koori woman, still refers to them as “my little gang”.

Five years later only three of them are still alive. “One, I went to her funeral only two weeks ago,” she says. “She was the baby of the gang.

“Another old gentleman passed of pneumonia about a month ago, I think. There’s only three of us left and their health isn’t the best either, they’ve got the stigma around them as well. They get treated as drunks.”

Studies in Australia and abroad have shown that even a single period of homelessness is profoundly harmful to a person’s physical and mental health.

“It almost drove me to suicide a few times,” Christian says. “It was a dark, dark place.”

The level of unmet demand for support is vast. Every day in 2022-23 there were nearly 295 unmet requests for help to specialist homelessness services.

Christian says she struggled to get proper healthcare. Doctors stigmatised and disbelieved her due to her homelessness, she says, and a note made on her file years ago saying she was suffering drug-induced psychosis.

But Christian is a survivor.

At 54, she has lived longer than most Australians experiencing homelessness, something she attributes to her securing housing in 2020 with the help of the Perth-based advocacy group Daydawn.

“My health would have deteriorated a lot quicker out there than it is now,” she said. “It’s slowly progressing but I would have deteriorated – I would have been gone a long time ago.”

Davies also complained of his failing health while sleeping rough.

Both his and Christian’s cases expose gaps in the health system, a problem experts say is compounded by the lack of funding for specialist homelessness healthcare services.

Davies’ handwritten housing application, seen by Guardian Australia, suggests he suffered an infection while recovering from gall bladder surgery “under a bridge”.

He also complained of struggling to walk on his prosthetic leg and of his difficulties in keeping the area clean while sleeping rough.

“I need a new prosthesis due to 2 bad blisters on either side of my knee causing me great pain to walk,” he wrote. “Having to buy new prosthetic socks every fortnight because I haven’t been able to wash them.”
‘Uncomfortable truths’

No government in Australia bothers to collect data about the life expectancy gap between people experiencing homelessness and the general population.

In an attempt to address this failing, Guardian Australia engaged researchers at the National Coronial Information System, who have access to non-public death reports made to coroners, to examine known homelessness deaths between 2010 and 2021.

In the 627 deaths they could find – nowhere near a full count of homelessness deaths – they found an average age of death of 45.2 years for men and 40.1 years for women.

That represents a life expectancy gap of more than three decades between the median age at death for the general population, which is 79 years for men and 85 years for women.

Despite the limitations of the data, it is the first time the life expectancy gap has been shown at a national level.

The finding is in line with a much more comprehensive but localised study in Perth, which found the median age at death was 50, and a study limited to three homelessness services in inner-city Sydney, which also found a median age of death of 50.

It also accords with government data in England and Wales, where the average age of deaths for people experiencing homelessness is 45 for men and 43 for women, and in Scotland, where deaths are most common among women aged 35 to 44 and men aged 45 to 54.

In 2021 the lack of Australian data prompted David Pearson, the chief executive of the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness, to pen a letter to the then health minister, Greg Hunt.

He warned that homelessness deaths and Australia’s failure to collect even the most basic data about them was a “national emergency that requires urgent national leadership”.

Pearson urged the Morrison government to commission the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to develop a reporting framework that would allow hospitals, coroners and health and homelessness services to report on the deaths of rough sleepers they come in contact with.

He said Hunt had not responded and that the Morrison government, despite having a minister for homelessness, had referred him to state governments.

“The commonwealth said it was a state issue,” he said. “Most of [the states] didn’t respond. Some of them said, ‘Let’s have some further conversations’, and then nothing happened.”

The Perth study, led by University of Notre Dame Australia’s Prof Lisa Wood, has shown it is possible to count homelessness deaths.

Her Home2Health research team, operating with threadbare funding, compares hospital and other death records with a pool of more than 8,500 people known to have experienced homelessness in the city, built from client lists of local homelessness services.

By cross-checking the known group against hospital records and the WA register of births, deaths and marriages, they identified 360 deaths between 2020 and 2022, with a median age at death of 50 years.

“I can’t help but think that it’s such an uncomfortable truth that in some ways it’s less confronting for governments and others if it remains hidden,” Wood says.
Preventable tragedies

The stories of Australia’s homeless dead reveal failure after systemic failure.

In the case of Terrence Malone, the missed opportunities to divert him from a premature death are almost too many to count.

Malone, an Indigenous man loved deeply by his children, spent much of his life helping others.

He worked as a firefighter and spent 16 years as a psychiatric nurse in Toowoomba, a career that ended after assaults and threats on his life triggered bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders and alcohol dependency.

Malone moved to Brisbane but was left on the streets after police impounded his van and shelters kicked him out due to their zero-tolerance alcohol policies.

It is really dangerous to be experiencing homelessness

Deborah Di Natale, Council to Homeless Persons

In mid-2014 he was accepted by an alcohol rehabilitation service in Toowoomba but was told he could not start until he was off painkillers prescribed for a shoulder injury. The injury required surgery that the local hospital repeatedly delayed and refused to prioritise to get Malone into rehab.

Just months later Malone was imprisoned for the first time in his life on minor property offences and later had his parole revoked over a missed appointment.

Parole officers, having made an underwhelming attempt to find him, deemed his whereabouts unknown, a regular problem for rough sleepers entangled in the justice system, and ordered that he be found and locked back up.

Before he went back behind bars Malone told police – who had no real difficulty finding him – that he was suicidal and had made prior attempts on his life.

A Brisbane correctional centre failed to flag him as a suicide risk. Prison officers gave him razor blades and left him alone in a cell without regular observations.

Malone was found dead the day after his admission. He was 54.

Nick Ware, a lawyer and former police officer, represented Malone’s family at the subsequent inquest, which found that the death could have been prevented.

Ware says Malone’s death left an indelible mark on him: “It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that these are people, like you and me, and they deserve to be treated equally and with compassion.”

Similar tragedies are repeated all over the country.

The Council to Homeless Persons chief executive, Deborah Di Natale, describes premature death as a “stark reality” of homelessness.

“It is really dangerous to be experiencing homelessness,” Di Natale said. “We also know that people without homes are at increased risk of death due to untreated illnesses – respiratory illnesses, mental health-related deaths and addiction-related deaths.”

Despite this, rough sleepers’ deaths rarely make their way into public discourse.

Di Natale says silence is fuelled by stigma and false assumptions. “We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that these people are loved by their families, their communities and their [support] workers,” she says.

The housing application found next to Davies’ body shows he was in a desperate state. His handwritten words show a man of failing physical and mental health, all linked to housing.

“I’m thinking of suicide, I’ve been trying to get housing since all my stuff at a bedsitter was thrown in the charity [bin],” he wrote.

New South Wales police did not answer specific questions about the case – a spokesperson said it was a historical matter and they would not be able to review the material in time for publication.

They referred Guardian Australia to the coronial findings. The coronial inquest was not critical of the police investigation.

A Department of Communities and Justice spokesperson said destitute funerals were facilitated by NSW Health but that NSW Police were responsible “for undertaking all necessary investigations before providing advice to the coroner that senior next of kin enquiries have been exhausted and that a deceased is destitute”.

Investigators told the coroner they attempted to contact Davies’ relatives in 2015, but that phone numbers on NSW police systems were “not current”. They also said the number they eventually obtained for Davies’ brother in November 2017 from South Australian police only would have been available from June 2017 onwards.

Davies’ sister is clear-eyed about what she wants to come from her brother’s death.

She says more housing must be given to those who need it most, with wraparound support services to address their mental and physical health.

It is what housing and homelessness groups have been calling for for years, an international best-practice model known as “housing first”.

“The housing system needs to become more available for people who need it and less available for people who are just taking advantage of [it],” Davies’ sister says. “I realise that some people have drug issues and stuff that makes it hard, or make people’s priorities a bit of a mess …

“I think that they’re the ones who perhaps need the help the most. If they had somewhere to stay every night and somewhere to get off the drugs that was safe, perhaps they would. But if they’re out there, then they’re not going to want to.

“It starts from the ground up.”

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Portuguese man who has lived legally

 in UK since 2001 faces deportation


Diane Taylor
Sun, 4 February 2024 

João Rocha Gonçalves Da Silva.Photograph: Handout

The Home Office has threatened a Portuguese plumber who has lived legally in the UK for more than 20 years with deportation after he struggled with his application to remain in the country.

According to lawyers and human rights campaigners the case of João Rocha Gonçalves Da Silva, 45, is evidence of the Home Office’s increasingly hostile environment policy regarding EU citizens.

Da Silva’s lawyer has said there is a risk of another Windrush-type scandal affecting vulnerable EU citizens who have applied late for the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) unless the government changes course.


Da Silva arrived in the UK in May 2001 and has worked for his employer Domenic Tomeo, 48, since 2007 in his plumbing business. He has always paid his taxes and has no criminal record.

“Joao is like family to me. He’s a hard worker and 100% trustworthy,” said Tomeo.

A tearful Da Silva told the Guardian: “I’m scared the Home Office will send me back to Portugal. My parents are dead and I have nobody left there now. I consider the UK to be my home and my boss is my family.”

Da Silva tried to apply for EUSS using the Home Office app in 2019 but it was unable to scan his Portuguese ID card. Da Silva applied for a new ID card but had the same problem.

Related: Home Office U-turns on rights of EU citizens who were in UK pre-Brexit

He then tried to apply online but he was unable to do so because he did not have the correct technology. He contacted the Home Office helpline for assistance, but because of a speech impediment and the fact that English is not his first language, the person on the helpline did not understand him.

Da Silva finally found a community organisation to help him submit a late application on 7 November last year, but the Home Office rejected his application just over two weeks later.

In his application Da Silva explained that he had submitted it late because of problems related to his speech impediment. Officials responded that it “is not considered to constitute reasonable grounds for your delay in making your application”.

The Home Office rejection letter contained 11 bullet points of what would now happen to Da Silva including being fined, detained, imprisoned and banned from the UK. There is no right of appeal against the rejection.

His lawyer, Naga Kandiah of MTC Solicitors, has launched a legal challenge against the rejection, arguing that it breaches the EU withdrawal agreement and misapplies the guidance. It calls on the Home Office to accept Da Silva’s application as valid and to introduce a right of appeal for these cases.

“Mr Da Silva is a long term resident of the United Kingdom with a clear entitlement to remain here under the withdrawal agreement,” said Kandiah. “His case shows the risk that EU citizens who have been lawfully resident for many years may suddenly find themselves stripped of their rights overnight. The Home Office needs to carefully consider its approach to avoid another scandal comparable to Windrush.”

The Home Office tightened up the criteria for what officials now consider “reasonable grounds” for late applicants in August 2023.

The most recently available data is to 30 September 2023, almost two months after the changes were brought in on 9 August last year. In August, 9,470 applications were found “invalid” – three times higher than the average of 2,943 a month in previous months. In September, 13,930 applications were found invalid, almost five times higher than the previous average.

Andreea Dumitrache, a spokesperson for the3million, which supports the rights of EU citizens in the UK, said: “The ‘reasonable grounds’ people have to satisfy in order to make a late application are anything but reasonable. We’re seeing marginalised people being punished unjustly, and left to suffer at the hands of the government’s hostile environment. This system creates vulnerability and can push anyone into destitution.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The EU settlement scheme has provided millions of EU citizens and their eligible family members with the immigration status they need to continue living and working in the UK now that we have left the EU.

“The deadline for applying to the scheme passed more than two years ago but, in line with the citizens’ rights agreements, we continue to accept and consider late applications from those with reasonable grounds for their delay in applying.”

Eight dead, 80 injured in India firework factory explosion

Explosions often occur in firecracker workshops in India.

But many factories fail to stick to basic safety requirements and operate without permits.


AFP
Tue, 6 February 2024 

Images from the factory site showed a wasteland of blackened and smoking rubble (Uma Shankar MISHRA)

At least eight people died and 80 were injured Tuesday in a giant explosion at a firework factory in India that saw balls of flames soar into the sky, officials said.

Footage on Indian television showed a tower of flame after the explosion at the firecracker plant, with dozens of ambulances sent and army helicopters called in to evacuate the wounded.

Senior district police official Rajeshwari Mahobia told AFP there were "eight deaths so far and around 80 injured", at the factory in Harda in Madhya Pradesh state, adding that "the death toll is likely to go up".

Images from the factory site showed a wasteland of blackened and smoking rubble.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said reports of the explosion were "very sad news" and said medics at burn units in nearby major hospitals were called to make "necessary preparations".

"Ambulances are being rushed to Harda from the surrounding areas, and the army has been contacted to arrange for helicopters," Yadav said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

At least 20 ambulances were at the site, with 50 more being sent to help those injured, he added.

Manish Sharma, a surgeon at the Harda district hospital, said the centre had been flooded with a stream of casualties.

"We have eight deaths at our hospital, a total of 90 people were admitted here so far and we have referred 15 of them to a bigger hospital," Sharma told AFP.

"As more people are being rescued from the site, they are being brought here."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "distressed by the loss of lives", saying the government would give the families of those killed $2,400 each in compensation, and $600 to those injured.

- 'Stampede' -

Kailash Chand Parte, a senior district official who is coordinating rescue efforts from the factory, said fire engines were battling the fierce blaze.

"The fire is still not under control and we have around 15 fire engines and many rescue workers at the site", Parte said.

He said between 200 and 300 people worked at the factory, but it was not known how many were inside at the time of the explosion.

"At least 10 buildings around the complex where the blast happened have been damaged because of the intensity of the explosion", he added.

One policeman told the Times of India that the dead included those trampled during the panic to escape the raging flames.

Some died during the "stampede after the blast", local police officer Abdul Raees Khan told the newspaper, adding rescue teams were "yet to reach the actual blast site as (the) fire is on".

Explosions often occur in firecracker workshops in India.

Fireworks are hugely popular in India, particularly during the Hindu festival of Diwali, as well as for use during wedding celebrations.

But many factories fail to stick to basic safety requirements and operate without permits.

In 2019, at least 18 people were killed in a firework factory explosion in Batala in Punjab state, and another 10 were killed in the same year in Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh.

bb-pjm/aha

India's tigers climb high as climate, human pressure rises

Mahesh PANDEY with Sailendra SIL in Kolkota
Mon, 5 February 2024 

Tigers in India have been photographed in high-altitude mountains rarely seen before (Dibyangshu SARKAR)

Tigers in India have been photographed in high-altitude mountains rarely seen before, with experts suggesting relentless human pressure and a heating climate are driving them from traditional hunting grounds.

Researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) said they were surprised to find "multiple pictures" of tigers in the mountains of Sikkim -- the Indian state squeezed between Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet -- including one snapped at 3,966 metres (13,011 feet).

The camera traps were installed in "high-altitude regions to understand the impact of climate changes on large mammals", said Sandeep Tambe, ecologist and chief warden of Sikkim's forest department.

"One of the major possible causes may be the impact of climate change and rising anthropogenic pressure," said WII researcher Pooja Pant.

Tigers have been spotted in the colder higher mountains before.

In neighbouring Nepal have been spotted at a record 4,000 metres, according to the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF).

As long as there is enough prey, tigers are usually expected to stay in warmer forests lower down.

But they are now being seen more regularly at higher reaches.

While tigers are known to range over varied terrains and altitudes, the highest concentration of the big cats in the Corbett Tiger Reserve is in the foothills of the Himalayas, ranging from around 385 to 1,100 metres.

In India, WWF director Anamitra Anurag Danda said a tiger had been spotted at 3,602 metres by a WWF team in Sikkim in 2019, while another in the state was spotted at 3,640 metres last year.

- 'Tiger migration' -

"It may be a range shift of tigers," said Pranabesh Sanyal, a geologist and a leading tiger expert in Kolkata.

"In the past two decades, temperatures at high altitudes have warmed faster than at altitudes below 2,000 meters. Due to climate change, tiger migration is taking place."

As global temperatures rise due to climate change, scientists have documented swathes of species shifting their ranges.

Last month, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said the 2023 annual average global temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900) -- the warmest year on record.

Scientists have warned that any rise above 1.5 C risks the collapse of ecosystems and the triggering of irreversible shifts in the climate system.

Conservation biologist Qamar Qureshi, chairman of WII's Tiger Cell, said tigers would usually prefer lower-altitude forested valleys.

"Climbing of the mountains by the tigers... proves that they are under pressure," he said, noting both an "increasing human population, along with the increasing number of tigers".

But Qureshi also suggested one reason more tigers were being reported higher than before was partly due to increasing technology -- including both sophisticated camera traps, and more people with camera phones using social media.

Tiger expert Shrikant Chandola, who was Uttarakhand's top forest official before retirement, said that tigers can still cope in the cold.

But he said tigers were moving because human-wildlife conflict was "increasing everywhere" with growing construction, coupled with more competition for food.

"The prey base of the tiger is decreasing, due to which his nature is also becoming irritable," he said.

"Young tigers are trying to push the older and less powerful tigers out", he added.

- 'Small islands in a vast sea' -

India is believed to have had a tiger population of around 40,000 at the time of independence from Britain in 1947.

That fell to about 3,700 in 2002 and an all-time low of 1,411 four years later, but numbers have since risen steadily to above 3,000.

India has more than tripled protected areas for tigers past half century, now made up of 53 reserves totalling 75,796 kilometres squared (29,265 miles squared), an area bigger than neighbouring Sri Lanka.

But pressures are growing.

"Most tiger reserves and protected areas in India are existing as small islands in a vast sea of ecologically unsustainable land use," India's Status of Tiger report reads, released in 2022.

"Although some habitat corridors exist that allow tiger movement between them, most of these habitats are not protected areas," it noted, warning those areas "continue to deteriorate further due to unsustainable human use and developmental projects".

Dheeraj Pandey, field director of the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand state, said awareness campaigns were being run to try to mitigate the impact of tigers on the people who live around parks.

At least three people have been killed and 10 injured by tigers this year alone around Corbett reserve, and anger is growing.

"The tiger cannot be told not to go here, not to do this," Pandey said. "Only measures can be taken to avoid it".

strs-pjm/sn

BP to scale up oil production amid shift away from renewables

Jonathan Leake
Tue, 6 February 2024

BP

BP has vowed to ramp up oil production in 2024 as the energy giant shifts away from ambitious net zero targets.

New chief executive Murray Auchincloss said BP will take a “pragmatic” approach to the green energy transition, as it scales back plans to reduce carbon emissions.

BP’s latest results revealed that profits fell from $27.7bn to $13.8bn in 2023, although shares rose by 5pc after the figures beat analyst estimates.


As part of Tuesday’s update, BP announced an accelerated share buyback programme as Mr Auchincloss tries to win over shareholders.

It comes after BP was targeted by activist investor Bluebell Capital last month, which called for the business to scrap “irrational” net zero commitments championed by former chief Bernard Looney.

The company’s latest annual report shows that its commitment to oil remains as strong as ever, with production surging by 8.6pc in the last quarter of 2023 to 1.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The same trend was evident throughout the year with oil production 6.7pc higher than in 2022.

However, BP now expects production levels to increase further: “Looking ahead, BP expects first quarter 2024 reported upstream production to be higher compared to fourth-quarter 2023.”

The predicted increase is linked to the startup of production in two fields located in the North Sea.

Multiple drilling projects are also underway in the Gulf of Mexico – a sensitive area for BP following the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 when 11 people died in an explosion.

Last year the company paid out another $1.2bn in oil spill payments.

Despite the ramp up in oil production, BP said its renewables and low-carbon businesses were also expanding.

It said: “The renewables pipeline increased by 21.1 gigawatts during the full year, including BP being awarded the rights to develop two North Sea offshore wind projects in Germany (4GW) and an increase in dedicated hydrogen renewables (12.4GW).”

The fall in BP’s profits follows last week’s results from rival Shell, as profits hit $28.2bn, down from $39.9bn in 2022.

The annual results mark the end of a turbulent year for BP.

Mr Looney was forced out last September after it emerged that he had conducted multiple relationships with colleagues, of which he had not been “fully transparent” despite requests from BP’s board of directors.

BP’s board said Mr Looney had committed “serious misconduct” which resulted in him forfeiting up to £32.4m in bonuses.

Mr Auchincloss was initially appointed interim chief executive but was confirmed as the permanent successor last month.

Murray Auchincloss was initially appointed interim chief executive of BP after Bernard Looney's departure - Ryan Lim/AFP

His former post as BP’s chief financial officer has since been filled by Kate Thomson, formerly chief finance officer for BP’s production & operations business.

Analysts responded positively to the latest results.

Jamie Maddock, energy analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said BP had “beaten expectations”.

He said: “That share buyback scheme has potential to grow, reaching at least $14bn through to 2025, which would imply an impressive distribution yield and a strong show of confidence in the outlook.

“BP recognises that it has work to do with shareholders given what has happened over the last 12 months, and this is a positive start to the resetting of that relationship.”

However, BP’s bid to boost oil production was met with criticism by climate campaigners.

Charlie Kronick, senior climate advisor at Greenpeace UK said: “The reality is the company is still making billions of pounds from fossil fuels and its green policies fall far short of what’s needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“We simply cannot leave the future of the planet in the hands of executives and shareholders concerned only with cashing in on fossil fuels until the band stops playing.

“We urgently need the government to force companies like BP to stop drilling and to make their vast resources available both for the coming transition to low carbon energy.”

BP bags bumper 2023 profits, rewards investors

Roland JACKSON
Tue, 6 February 2024 


British energy giant BP logged multi-billion-dollar annual profits Tuesday despite lower oil prices and following boardroom turmoil, sending its share price rallying thanks also to more big payouts to investors.

Net profit came in at $15.2 billion in 2023, following a loss the prior year linked to its exit from Russia following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, it said in a results statement.

The annual results sparked fresh fury from the green lobby but herald a new era under new chief executive Murray Auchincloss, following the dramatic sacking of his predecessor Bernard Looney.

The oil giant suffered a net loss of $2.5 billion in 2022, when it booked a gigantic charge of $24 billion on its exit from Russian energy group Rosneft.

Reflecting lower oil prices and refining margins last year, BP revealed Tuesday that underlying profit excluding exceptional items halved to $13.8 billion.

That compared with a record $27.7 billion the prior year when prices of fossil fuels had surged on key gas and oil producer Russia's assault on neighbouring Ukraine, boosting the performance of the global energy sector.

Shares rallied six percent to top London's FTSE 100 risers board after BP also announced forecast-beating fourth quarter profit, vast stock buybacks and a shareholder dividend hike.

BP will deliver $1.75 billion in buybacks for the fourth quarter of last year.

It also revealed $3.5 billion for the first half of this year under plans to buy back at least $14 billion over 2024-2025.

- 'Resilient performance' -

"BP joins the throng of the other global oil majors in capping off a difficult year with a resilient performance which beat expectations on most metrics," said Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.

The global industry was also energised in 2022 by rebounding demand and prices, as the world economy emerged from Covid pandemic lockdowns the prior year.

Prices have since declined but remain elevated due to concerns that the Israel-Hamas conflict could spark broader unrest in the crude-rich Middle East.

"Looking back, 2023 was a year of strong operational performance with real momentum in delivery right across the business," Auchincloss said in the earnings release.

BP's former chief financial officer took the reins in September, after Looney resigned and was later officially sacked over his failure to disclose past relationships with colleagues.

Activist investor Bluebell Capital last week urged BP to scale back its "irrational" clean energy ambitions to "invest in clean energy" like biofuels and hydrogen, rather than areas like renewable energy where the investment fund claims the group has no competitive advantage or experience.

- 'Destination unchanged' -

However, BP stressed on Tuesday that it remains committed to its energy transition strategy.

"As we look ahead, our destination remains unchanged -- from international oil company to integrated energy company -- focused on growing the value of BP," added Auchincloss.

BP had diluted its long-term carbon emission reduction targets one year ago for its oil and gas production.

Environmental campaigners Greenpeace on Tuesday slammed it for "falling far short" in tackling climate change.

"The company is still making billions from fossil fuels and its green policies fall far short of what's needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change," said Charlie Kronick, senior climate advisor at Greenpeace UK.

"We simply cannot leave the future of the planet in the hands of executives and shareholders concerned only with cashing in on fossil fuels until the band stops playing."

UK rival Shell revealed last week that annual net profit more than halved in 2023 on lower oil and gas prices, but it returned $3.5 billion to shareholders and hiked its dividend.

US rivals Chevron and ExxonMobil also posted lower but still strong profits, and pushed ahead with hefty shareholder payouts.

ode-rfj/bcp/lth

UK’s credit unions face uncertain future amid cost of living crisis

PROUDHON'S PEOPLES BANK BY ANY OTHER NAME

Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent
Sun, 4 February 2024 

The number of credit unions have fallen from a peak of about 700 in 2001 to 240 today.Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Observer

When 27-year-old Basil Lewis left the picturesque parish of Clarendon, Jamaica, famed for its spa, to start a new life in London in 1954, he did not plan to shake up the UK’s centuries-old banking sector.

But the financial discrimination faced by Caribbean migrants in the UK – who were refused loans, charged higher interest rates, or forced to pay larger mortgage deposits than the rest of the population – meant there was a lack of affordable credit for newly settled workers such as Lewis.

Working with a group of fellow Union Church members in Hornsey, north London, Lewis drew on a financial model popular in the West Indies and by 1964 had launched the UK’s first credit union.


Related: Credit unions are helping Britons survive – but can they really rival banks?

The idea spread, peaking at about 700 credit unions by 2001, while assets and membership hit a record high of £2.6bn and 1.5 million members respectively this year.

But just as the UK prepares to celebrate 60 years since Lewis’s credit union launched, the industry has found itself at a crossroads.

Financial pressures have seen a decline in the number of credit unions in recent years, leaving just 240 across Britain, with some forced to wind down but most being swallowed up by rivals in a huge wave of consolidation.

And those that remain have been put on notice by the Bank of England, which in October flagged serious concerns about poor governance, liquidity risks and their ability to withstand the current economic downturn.

Labour has pledged to double the size of the entire mutual and cooperative sector if it gains power. However, without careful management, the future of the country’s credit unions, which have provided a financial lifeline for vulnerable households, could be thrown into question.

Credit unions have a modest profile in Britain. They are not-for-profit cooperatives that are owned by, and serve, members with a common bond – meaning those that either live locally or work for a certain industry. Some still rely on volunteers to govern or run their everyday operations and tend to focus on personal loans as small as £50, particularly for the less well off, who are often considered too risky by mainstream banks.

Charges are capped at an annual percentage rate of about 42.6% across most of the UK – approximately 3% a month – which can be a good deal for those borrowing small amounts over short periods, who would otherwise be driven to loan sharks or extortionate payday lenders.

That proved to be the case for 47-year-old Kelly Evanson, who originally turned to the Just Credit Union in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, seven years ago after seeing flyers for an auto-payroll deduction programme meant to build up savings. Two years later, it was a lifeline, providing a £1,500 loan to tide her over in the middle of a difficult divorce. “They were the first people that I went to, because I wasn’t sure how the marriage breakup had kind of affected my credit rating.”

“That’s the kind of story we typically see,” says Matt Bland, chief executive of the Co-op Credit Union, which serves workers in the mutual sector. “People go through a cascade of less good lenders and then they might come across a credit union that’s trying to offer them a better deal.”



Surging interest rates and living costs have triggered a reversal of fortunes that raised eyebrows at the Bank of England

The role of credit unions in financial inclusion has not been lost on the Financial Conduct Authority. In 2019, the regulator used a 49-page report to call for the government to review the use of credit unions to develop a more viable alternative to payday lenders such as Wonga, which had collapsed a year earlier after complaints over interest charges of more than 5,000%.

The review was sidelined during the pandemic, but credit unions broadly weathered the storm. Fast-forward to 2023 and surging interest rates and living costs have triggered a reversal of fortunes concerning enough to raise eyebrows at the Bank.

“The external environment has changed considerably over the past 12-24 months,” the Bank warned credit union directors in October. Not only had the cost of living crisis caused more borrowers to fall behind on repayments, but the surge in interest rates had made new loans unaffordable for many members.

They started making unexpected withdrawals to either compensate for a surge in the cost of living, or chase higher returns for their savings elsewhere. Meanwhile, the boom in buy now, pay later products by the likes of Klarna and Clearpay chipped away at both loan demand and credit unions’ willingness to lend to overstretched borrowers.

At the same time, credit unions suffered a fall in liquidity – the amount of readily available cash needed to repay savers and conduct business.

Together, those factors had created “risk and stress that the credit union sector has not had to address in recent times”, the Bank said, , warning that credit unions which failed to recruit experienced leaders should consider winding down or being swallowed up by a rival.

Robert Kelly, who led the NHS Credit Union in Glasgow for 10 years before taking over as chief executive of the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd, acknowledges the Bank’s concerns. “It was a sort of a rallying call to the sector. And we heard that.”

However, he insists that the Bank’s most pressing concerns apply to between 5% and 10% of credit unions. “It’s absolutely not the case that there are widespread governance [issues].”

Many credit unions are now reviewing recruitment and risk management strategies, while others may consider introducing more paid staff, he says. Creating a more “professional” industry may also be necessary in light of landmark changes contained in the Financial Services and Markets Act that take effect this summer. Credit unions will be able, for the first time, to offer car financing, mortgages, credit cards and general insurance.

While this change is meant to create more affordable products for members, it will also help diversify income streams.

The shadow City minister, Tulip Siddiq, has raised concern over the dwindling number of credit unions, which she said were still operating in an “outdated regulatory regime”. Labour plans to further expand the list of financial products that credit unions can offer and force regulators to prove they considered the effect on mutuals when setting rules for the City. Full plans are still being drafted.

It could help serve more consumers such as 43-year-old Sheryl Falkingham. Despite working for a local energy supplier, a surge in living costs left her with little room to manoeuvre when her 10-year-old daughter needed a new school uniform last summer. “Up until two and a half years ago, I would have had that disposable income, but because the cost of living has increased more than my salary, I just don’t have that any more,” she said. The Bradford District Credit Union arranged a £33 a month repayment plan, with £10 reserved for building up a new savings pot. Whatever the plan, boosting the number of credit unions may not be the answer, with both Kelly and Bland saying that consolidation may actually make the network more financially sound.

In the same vein, they are urging parties to reform common bond rules, which limit credit unions to serving members who live or work in a certain region, or for a particular industry, and to a cap on membership.

In the meantime, Kelly says the industry will use the 60th anniversary to showcase the differences that credit unions have made to “ordinary people’s lives”. “The next 60 years will look different,” he says. “That doesn’t mean that we lose our cooperative, and ethical and mutual values, though. Not at all.”

UK
Virgin Money warns of more job cuts to come after dropping 150 staff as it slashes costs


Charlie Conchie
Tue, 6 February 2024


Virgin Money warned of more job cuts to come today as it scales back its branches.

Virgin Money warned of further cost-cutting and layoffs to come today after slashing its headcount in the first quarter of the year.

In a trading update this morning, the London-listed lender said it was on track to deliver £200m of annualised savings after “accelerating restructuring and digitisation activity” at the start of its financial year.

The firm has followed scores of high-street lenders in closing branches and slashing its headcount in recent years in a bid to contain costs and account for the shift to digital banking. A total of 39 stores were shuttered in the first quarter, a reduction of 30 per cent to 91 stores.

Some 150 staff were laid off as a result of the restructuring and bosses said they “expect further reductions in [full time employees] during the year”.

“We are also looking to make increasing use of other more cost-effective geographies for outsourced activities,” they added.

In its first quarter trading update today, the bank predicted a rebound in the mortgage market despite its overall lending to customers dipping 0.3 per cent to £72.83bn in the first three months of its financial year.

Overall mortgage lending to customers fell 2.2 per cent to £57.1bn on the back of what it said reflected a “disciplined approach to trading in subdued market”.

The housing market has been hammered over the past 18 months as the Bank of England has hiked rates aggressively to tame inflation. City analysts are pricing in rate cuts this year and banks have begun cutting rates across the board on their mortgage products.

In a statement, the bank said it was seeing “early signs that market activity has improved in January” and was climbing back to 2019 levels.

“We are encouraged by both our customers’ resilience and improving sentiment in the mortgage market as interest rates have peaked,” said chief executive David Duffy. “We carry good momentum into 2024 as we continue to successfully execute our strategy.”

The slide in mortgages was softened by an uptick in Virgin’s business and unsecured lending.

Business lending grew 6.7 per cent on last year on the back of “strong demand at good margins in our sector specialisms”, the firm said. Credit card borrowing also provided a boost to its unsecured business as lending increased 7.8 per cent on the same period in 2023.

The bank also announced that independent non-executive director and risk committee chair Geeta Gopalan will step down from its board on 30 June, after which she will join Natwest.

RBC analyst Benjamin Toms said in a note: “We struggle to understand what makes VMUK an attractive investment other than the bank looks cheap, in our view, and it feels like a lot of investment is still required to compete with large UK peers.”

Virgin Money’s shares rose 1.2 per cent on Tuesday morning.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “The big worry whenever a bank updates on trading is the level of bad debts given the fragile backdrop. Virgin Money reported a ‘modest increase’ in its provisions, which certainly hasn’t troubled the market.”