#MeToo is over if we don’t listen to ‘imperfect victims’ like Amber Heard


When even young women join the actor’s male tormentors, ideas of justice soon begin to unravel

Amber Heard in court in Fairfax, Virginia, on 18 May 2022. 

Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images

Martha Gill
Sun 22 May 2022

The backlash to the #MeToo movement was always coming. We know this because a backlash has followed every single step forward feminists have ever made. This backlash was always going to be big, too. Not only did #MeToo threaten a status quo that props up powerful men, it threatened these men personally, and – as it seemed to some – with reckless caprice.

“If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this,” a White House lawyer said shortly after Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were made public, “then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.”

It wasn’t just men who were worried. The idea that systems that previously treated only women, minorities and lower-class men unfairly might be capable of doing the same to high-status men was deeply unsettling to everyone.

After all, when a man is treated badly it lands with a double sense of burning injustice. Women’s stories of woe are so common that they can leave us comparatively unfazed. We feel bad, but we already know women are treated unfairly. It is priced in. “[Women’s stories were] all the same story, which is not to say it wasn’t important. But it was boring,” writes Taffy Brodesser-Akner in her novel Fleishman Is in Trouble. “The first time I interviewed a man, I understood we were talking about something more like the soul.” When something bad happens to a powerful man, it has not happened to a statistic. It has happened to a human soul.
Female accusers are still routinely treated as if they are lying, both by the public and the courts

For these reasons, #MeToo struck many men – and women – as deeply unfair. Yet it was merely an attempt to correct a bias that still exists. Female accusers are still routinely treated as if they are lying, both by the public and the courts – more so than other alleged victims of crime. It took the testimony of more than a hundred women to bring down Harvey Weinstein. Brett Kavanaugh was not brought down.

The public reaction to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial is what a #MeToo backlash looks like. Here are the facts of the case. Depp is suing Heard for defamation after she described herself in a 2018 article that didn’t mention him as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”. Depp says he is innocent of abuse and her statement amounts to lying. On his side are two facts that seem clear. Heard promised to donate her entire divorce settlement to charity, and didn’t. There is a recording in which she admits to hitting Depp.

On Heard’s side is the following evidence. Depp admits to head-butting his ex-wife (by accident), and there are texts from his assistant alleging he kicked Heard. There are texts from Depp to Paul Bettany saying he wanted to kill Heard and rape “her burnt corpse”. There is a recording of Depp shouting at Heard for speaking in an “authoritative” way to him. She was awarded a domestic violence restraining order in 2016. In 2018 Depp sued the Sun newspaper for libel after it called him “a wife beater”. He lost the case after the judge found 12 of 14 alleged incidents of Depp’s abuse of Heard to be true.
The idea that Heard is a manipulator, a fantasist and an abuser herself has caught fire across all social media

The court will decide whether or not Heard is a liar. But the idea that Heard is a manipulator, a fantasist and an abuser herself has caught fire across all social media, and some more traditional outlets. Every sexist trope ever used to humiliate and discredit female accusers has been deployed against her at vast scale. Re-enacting her testimony of rape and abuse has become a game on TikTok. She has been mocked by Saturday Night Live, and by Chris Rock (“Believe all women, except Amber Heard”) and ’N Sync’s Lance Bass.

Heard’s tormentors, many of them young women, do not seem to see themselves as anti-feminist. They believe women, of course – just not this one.

It is not they who are damaging #MeToo, it is Heard – by virtue of being an imperfect victim.

They perhaps forget that the project of #MeToo – the whole point – was to help imperfect victims. Those who were wearing the wrong thing, or were drunk, or were promiscuous, or loved their perpetrator, or had previously broken the law, or had lied before, or had a bad character, or seemed “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”, as David Brock once memorably described Anita Hill, who testified during Clarence Thomas’s US supreme court confirmation hearings in 1991. In fact, perfect victims have never needed feminism, partly because they barely exist.

Whether or not Heard’s accusers fully realise it then, setting up “bad” victims in opposition to “genuine” ones is a very effective method of unpicking #MeToo. It is only the rare misogynist who outright admits they don’t believe women. Their objection has always been just to this one bitch, who is lying.

#MeToo (the clue’s in the name) attempted to combat this by linking experiences – all those bitches who weren’t believed – so we could see the pattern. In fact, you could say the whole project of feminism is about taking bad things that happened to women, which they thought only happened to them, or were their fault, and calling them by one name. Divide us back into unlinked individuals who might be lying, and the movement is lost.

#MeToo is often framed as having uncovered truths about the world – its success was because women “explained really clearly” what was going on. No. People already knew what was going on. #MeToo worked for the reason any feminist movement works: strength in numbers. It is a political movement pushing against incredibly strong forces in the other direction. There’s no reason to think its work cannot be rolled back.

Martha Gill is a political journalist and former lobby correspondent

Murder, rape and abuse in Asia’s factories: the true price of fast fashion

Muthulakshmi and Kathiravel with a portrait of their daughter, Jayasre Kathiravel, a 20-year old Dalit garment worker murdered in Tamil Nadu, India, in January 2021


Jeyasre Kathiravel’s death exposed the epidemic of violence facing workers making clothes for the UK high street. Will a groundbreaking agreement improve their lot?Photographs by Sivaram V


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About this content

Annie Kelly
Sun 22 May 2022 

Jeyasre Kathiravel had always dreamed of a life beyond the garment factories of Dindigul, a remote corner of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Despite the meagre wages she was earning – about £80 a month – Kathiravel knew she was lucky to have a job at Natchi Apparels, a local factory making clothes for H&M and other international brands.


Like many Dalit women in her community, a job at the factory had provided her family with a stable salary. Yet she wanted more. So, with dreams of escaping the deprivation and caste discrimination that had stalked her family for generations, the 20-year-old studied for the civil service exams by night before leaving her home each morning to work long shifts sewing clothes for other, luckier, young women thousands of miles away.

Jeyasre Kathiravel was allegedly killed by her supervisor.

 Photograph: Handout

Kathiravel never escaped the factory floor. On 1 January 2021, she failed to return home from work. Despite her family’s frantic attempts to find her, four days later her decomposing body was discovered by farmers just a few miles from her village.

When her supervisor, a man named by Indian media as V Thangadurai, was arrested for her murder, few of her intimate circle were surprised. Thangadurai has since been charged with her murder and is in jail awaiting trial.

For months before Kathiravel’s death, her family and co-workers say that Thangadurai was perpetrating a relentless campaign of sexual harassment towards her, which she felt powerless to report or stop.

“She said this man was torturing her but she didn’t know what to do because she was so scared of losing her job,” says her mother, Muthuakshmi Kathiravel.

“She was such a good girl, she was the best of all of us. She was always helping me and supporting the family, but wanted to do different things with her life.”

Workers at Natchi interviewed by the Observer in the weeks after her murder say Thangadurai was known to be a sexual predator operating with impunity at the factory.

“We all knew what he was doing to Jeysare but nobody in management cared,” says one woman who worked alongside Kathiravel. “If she complained she was scared she would lose her job or that men from the factory would visit her family and say she was a troublemaker.”

A year later, Kathiravel’s family are still deep in grief. In their home, Kathiravel’s face smiles down at them from a photo on the wall and they say they can never fill the hole she has left behind. Yet they now believe her death has not been in vain.

Kathiravel’s family outside their home in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu.

In the weeks after her murder, dozens of other women working at the factory came forward to claim that they too were being harassed and assaulted at Natchi. Their bravery set off a chain of events that could transform the lives of the 3,000 women working at the factory and provide a blueprint for how global fashion brands can stop the epidemic of sexual violence that has taken hold in fast fashion supply chains.

The inexorable rise of the multi-billion pound fast fashion industry has conditioned consumers to expect rock-bottom prices and a constant churn of new products, ramping up the pressure brands place on their overseas suppliers to produce ever-higher volumes of clothing in less time – with garment workers on poverty wages facing the consequences on the factory floor.

“The sexual harassment the women are facing in the garment industry is directly linked to their desperation to keep their jobs at all costs,” says Thivya Rakini, president of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU). “Their fingerprints are all over the clothes that people in rich countries wear, but their suffering is being silenced.”

Despite the factory’s denials after the allegations were made public, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a global organisation investigating labour abuses, launched an independent investigation into Natchi.

Its findings, shared exclusively with the Observer ahead of publication by the WRC, are a grim read.

In a detailed report, investigators say that multiple interviews and evidence gathering with more than 60 workers led them to conclude that Kathiravel was not the first garment worker to have been murdered at Natchi.

Investigators say they are confident that at least two other female workers besides Kathiravel were killed while working at Natchi between 2019 and 2021.

The WRC says it is “virtually certain” that a company-contracted bus driver and labour recruiter murdered a female worker following a sexual relationship that began while they were both working at the factory.

Thivya Rakini, president of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union speaks with Kathiravel’s family at their home.

The report claims there is a “high likelihood” that a migrant worker was also murdered on factory grounds by an unknown perpetrator and her body dumped in a shipping container. The report claims that multiple Natchi employees, including an eyewitness, testified that the murder had occurred on factory property and that afterwards managers had told workers not to talk about the incident.

The WRC has made it clear that investigators did not find concrete evidence to hold Natchi management directly responsible for these alleged killings or for the death of Kathiravel.

Because it is happening to poor women working thousands of miles away it isn’t considered the huge human rights scandal that it isRola Abimourched, Worker Rights Consortium

However, the report argues, multiple murders of female Natchi employees by men working for Natchi in supervisory or quasi-supervisory roles could not be detached from the environment of gender-based violence and harassment that Natchi management had allowed to flourish at the factory.

WRC investigators concluded that over the past decade, women working at Natchi had been subjected to “pervasive” physical sexual harassment, verbal sexual harassment, non-verbal sexual harassment and sexual coercion, with male supervisors propositioning female workers at the workplace for sexual relationships by coercive means.

Women workers told investigators that their male supervisors routinely bullied and publicly humiliated them for missing production targets and they were subjected to constant verbal abuse and sexual slurs. Investigators also found that factory management tolerated an environment of caste discrimination, where workers from the lowest Dalit castes were shunned by employees from higher castes.

The TTCU is investigating 29 other cases where women have died non-natural deaths while working in garment factories.

Eastman Exports, which owns Natchi Apparels, says it “disputes the accuracy of a number of statements in the WRC report” and denies that the murder of a migrant worker occurred on Natchi premises.

However, the company says it has taken all the allegations seriously and “has created systems, processes and procedures to protect and promote the rights of female workers”.


Fashion's dirty secret: how sexual assault took hold in jeans factories

“We have listened very carefully to our women workers and we are going to make sure that no woman ever feels unsafe again in one of our workplaces,” says Subash Tiwari, chief executive of Eastman Exports, who says he was shocked by the murder of Kathiravel and that his top priority was ensuring the safety of his female workers.

Last month, groundbreaking legally binding agreements were signed between Eastman Exports and the TTCU – a local female-led garment worker trade union that represents women at the factory – as well two international worker rights groups, the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) and Global Labour Justice (GLJ). Among other provisions, the agreement will overhaul the factory’s internal complaints process, install TTCU members on the factory floor to ensure women are safe at work and operate a zero-tolerance approach to harassment and verbal and physical abuse.

Thivya Rakini of the TTCU in discussion with textile workers. The union will now have members on the factory floor to ensure women are safe at work

Despite cancelling its orders at Natchi, H&M has signed a separate agreement with the TTCU, AFWA and GLJ and has committed to staying at the factory to help with implementation. It is the first time a brand has signed up to an initiative to tackle gender-based violence in Asia’s garment industry, where women make millions of tonnes of clothing for UK high streets every year.

If the agreement is properly implemented, the WRC says that Natchi could become one of the safest places for women to work in Tamil Nadu, a region notorious for dangerous working conditions for women.

“Our report documented serious abuses at this facility; however, because Natchi has made enforceable commitments to protect workers, it now presents a lower risk to buyers than just about any other supplier they might use,” says Rola Abimourched, deputy director of investigations and gender equity at the WRC.
I have worked in this industry for more than 20 years and I have seen terrible things happen within these factories – rapes, suicides and even murders

Yet the labour rights groups involved in the Natchi case say the abuse that was uncovered should not be seen as an isolated incident. Instead, it is an indication of how sexual violence has flourished and become deeply embedded into the production model of fast fashion.

“What we are facing is an epidemic of gender-based violence in the global fashion industry, but because it is happening to poor women working thousands of miles away it isn’t considered the huge human rights scandal that it is,” says Abimourched.

In Tamil Nadu, the TTCU is investigating 29 other cases where women have died non-natural deaths while working in garment factories supplying brands sold in the UK. It says that in many cases, the women were murdered by male colleagues after alleged rapes and campaigns of sexual harassment.

Thivya Rakini

“The abuse and harassment that was happening at Natchi is just everyday life in the factories where we work,” says Rakini. “We have seen many cases of women dying in garment factories across the region and nothing being done to investigate or seek justice.”

Anannya Bhattacharjee, international coordinator at the AFWA, says her organisation has catalogued multiple cases of egregious gender-based violence at garment facilities across Asia.

“Over the years, across production countries, we have witnessed and documented women garment workers being verbally and physically harassed, assaulted, threatened with retaliation for refusing sexual advances and denied basic rights,” she says.

Interviews with female workers by AFWA researchers in 2021 paint a horrifying picture of the scale and impunity of the sexual violence faced by the women who make our clothes.

“I have worked in this industry for more than 20 years and I have seen terrible things happen within these factories – rapes, suicides and even murders,” one woman working in a factory in India producing clothing for foreign brands told AFWA researchers.

“Women workers have no power to oppose the men in power – be it supervisors or managers. They can do anything to any woman – we are all at their mercy and we have no one to support or stand for us.”

‘We have to make sure that Jeysare’s death is the start of something that could prevent other women from also losing their lives,’ says Rakini

Female workers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also spoke to AFWA researchers about similar conditions at their factories. They spoke of managers forcing women to take pills to delay their periods in order to meet production targets, male workers coercing women into sexual relationships to get their sewing machines fixed and women being fired if they complained about sexual harassment.

“We keep silent due to fear of losing our jobs … the mental stress reached the point of breakdown – I was feeling almost suicidal,” says one woman at a factory in Pakistan that the AFWA says was making clothing for multiple brands selling in the UK.

For years, campaigners have warned that the fashion industry’s use of ethical codes of conduct and factory inspections to flag up human rights abuses don’t work; instead they allow brands to swerve responsibility for abuses that their production model and profit margins have created.

In the weeks after Kathiravel’s murder, women workers at Natchi told the Observer that the factory inspections conducted by brands were a sham. “The management knows when the auditors are coming and they tell us what to say,” said one young woman. “They say if we complain the factory would close and we would lose our jobs.”

When abuses are uncovered, especially sexual violence, this allows brands to “cut and run”, pulling their business from suppliers and protecting their reputation.
We have to make sure that Jeysare’s death is the start of something that could prevent other women from also losing their livesThivya Rakini, TTCU

“When trade unions raise issues of gender-based violence in a garment supplier factory to a brand, they generally just cut sourcing from that supplier. When they do this women lose jobs, are doubly victimised and become fearful of speaking out about what is happening to them,” says Bhattacharjee.

The WRC says that in the case of Natchi, brands that sourced from the factory had a moral responsibility to keep their business there.

“H&M has committed to support this vital programme to combat gender-based violence and harassment by signing the agreement. If H&M does not restore orders soon, it will gravely undermine the success of its own programme,” says Abimourched.

She also says that brands, including Marks & Spencer and Walmart, that were sourcing from the factory in the period of time when workers testified to experiencing sexual abuse had an obligation to resume orders.

“If they do not place orders now to support this process, it will be clear that their claims about respecting worker rights are meaningless.”

Although still mourning her deeply, Kathiravel’s family believe that as the catalyst for change to protect other women, her death was not in vain

H&M says that while it had stopped orders at Natchi, “our focus and hope is that the agreement reached will contribute to sustainable and lasting change for the industry as a whole beyond one individual company”.

Marks & Spencer says it ceased trading with Natchi in January 2020 and will not be working with the factory nor signing up to the agreement.

“We have not sourced from Natchi Apparels for over two years and had ceased the relationship prior to the WRC investigation. Ethical trading is fundamental to how we do business and we fully support the principle of remediation to improve working conditions,” it said in a statement.

Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

In Dindigul, the TTCU says it is working with women across the region who are now coming forward to ask for help.

“We are all human beings, all of our lives matter,” says Rakini. “We have to make sure that Jeysare’s death is the start of something that could prevent other women from also losing their lives because those in power simply don’t care.”

WHITE COLLAR ILLUSIONS
Wages have become far less important than the intangible perks of the job

Friendships, flexible hours and a pleasant place to work are all more significant than salary

A currency trader in London: 

‘ Some economists think higher pay is a form of compensation for unpleasant jobs.’ Photograph: Alex Segre/Alamy

Torsten Bell

THE OBSERVER
Sun 22 May 2022 10.00 BST

Three-quarters of working-age adults go to work. After all, most of us need to earn a wage. But how much we get paid isn’t the only factor that determines what is a good job.

The friendships we build, or the physical environment we work in, matter too. In focus groups we’ve been conducting all over the country in recent months, people have spoken about how much they value jobs with variety, jobs that give them flexibility to fit work around their lives.


All these other aspects of work can be hard to measure, so economists often stick to wages when comparing jobs – for instance, in measuring inequality. Luckily, not all researchers are that lazy. New work from the London School of Economics uses workers’ self-assessed life satisfaction to estimate the non-pecuniary rewards of different occupations.

Some economists think higher pay is a form of compensation for unpleasant jobs (think long hours in banking), but the researchers find non-pecuniary rewards are generally positively correlated with earnings (with notable exceptions – some low-paid agricultural work boosts wellbeing more than other low wage roles). So higher pay isn’t generally compensation for an unpleasant job – it’s part of the package that comes with a pleasant one.

Adding together the wage and non-pecuniary rewards of each occupation raises the inequalities between jobs significantly (variation increases by a third!) compared with just looking at pay gaps. Gender and ethnicity gaps also rise. Importantly, the returns to education are also higher because a degree doesn’t just get you a higher salary – it leads to a more pleasant job as well. The lesson? There’s more to work, and inequality, than pay.

Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org

The Bank of England fears worker power, but most are taking a real-terms pay cut


Conditions have improved for a select few but on wages and flexible hours, the trend for employees is generally backwards. Can the rate-setters grasp that?

Royal Mail has said workers need to accept more unsociable

 hours in return for a pay rise.

 Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Sat 21 May 2022
Phillip Inman
THE GUARDIAN


Goldman Sachs has bowed to demands for a less stressful workplace by offering a “flexible vacation” scheme that allows senior bankers to take a holiday whenever they feel like a break.

Generosity further down the investment bank’s global chain of command is more limited: it has told traders and admin staff – who are notorious for taking breaks lasting just a day – that they should disappear for at least one solid week out of the minimum of 15 days.

The stark inequality aside, Goldman’s warm hug for 43,000 global employees, 6,000 of them in the UK, is supposed to be a sign that the pandemic has forced employers into a major rethink of how to attract and retain staff – with better pay and benefits and a willingness to take on board their concerns.

At rival banks, and at large consultancies, accountancy firms and legal businesses, there is a similar story of more flexible working becoming the norm for most, if not all, staff. Most are aping what is on offer in the tech sector.

But policymakers, be they in the Treasury, the Bank of England or No 10, appear to be listening in horror to these stories, which they interpret as a sign of growing worker power.

A 4% rise gave a small improvement in living standards while inflation was at 2%. Now it represents a significant cut

For instance, the Bank of England is expected to jack up interest rates, mostly to head off a threatened wage/price spiral that relies on its feeling that workers, like poker players who have spent decades at the tables without success, are finally hitting the jackpot. It’s a short leap from flexible benefits to double-digit pay awards, according to some inside Threadneedle Street.

But while some employers are considering more flexible working, surveys show that this is being applied only to working from home – a change that may prove popular in many boardrooms as a permanent cost-cutting measure.

A recent survey for the TUC found that while regular home working tripled during the pandemic – rising from 6.8% of the working population in 2019 to 22.4% in 2021 – other forms of flexible working are being implemented as inflexibly as they ever were.

There was some good news when figures showed that over the past two and a half years, the number of people on flexi-time has increased, from 12.6% to 13.5%. However, part-time work declined – from 24.9% to 23.5% – as did the proportion of people benefiting from annualised hours, term-time working and job shares, which declined from 0.5% to 0.4% of the working population.

More indicative of the overall attitude to working practices is Royal Mail, which has thrown the gears into reverse, telling staff that they need to give up some flexibility in return for a slightly larger pay rise.

Not that Royal Mail is poor. It recently announced profits north of £700m. Yet it says the business cannot afford a pay rise of more than 2% now forecasts show that profits are due to halve this year. If postal workers want a further 1.5% and an “above and beyond” bonus of 2%, they must submit to a new working regime and extended week designed by the management.

The Communications Workers Union said last week that it would ballot for industrial action to secure a “no-strings” pay rise. The union must not only fight off a switch to new, unsociable working practices, it must also gain acceptance from the management of a “no-strings” pay award matching the current 9% inflation rate.

It would be nice to think that Royal Mail is an outlier. Yet to believe that the world is heading towards a rebalancing of capital and labour in favour of workers is surely to be deluded.

Negotiated pay rises seen by consultants XpertHR have risen from 3% in January to just 4% in April. These figures cover a cast of thousands of workers, from the automotive and chemicals sectors to large service industry employers.

None of these deals comes close to matching the inflation rate. A 4% rise was about the average before the pandemic, giving workers a small improvement in living standards while inflation was at a subdued 2%. Now it represents a significant cut and lies at the root of the cost-of-living crisis.

Yes, bonuses, signing-on fees and other non-consolidated elements of salaries gave a boost to pay growth in official figures for March to 7%. However, the Office for National Statistics made it clear that these payments were offered in banks, insurance companies and professional services. Everyone else missed out, seeing an average 4.2% rise when bonuses were excluded.

Workers at Goldman, Deloitte and Google can expect more flexibility – to go with their already high pay – but for everyone else, all the indicators show that the direction of travel is backwards.

Power failures: what are the bosses of Britain’s bust energy firms doing now?

Amit Gudka, left, and Hayden Wood, co-founders of collapsed Bulb Energy. Gudka has now set up a firm with several former ‘Bulberinos’. 

Photograph: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures

The collapse of dozens of providers caused huge disruption – but many of the people behind them are still in business

Alex Lawson

THE GUARDIAN

Sat 21 May 2022 

For the coachloads of visitors lured to Fort Augustus on the southern shore of Loch Ness by the prospect of spotting the mythical marine monster, a collection of green shipping containers parked in a nearby field warrants barely a glance.

But for some, those shipping containers represent green gold. Late last year, the Auchteraw battery storage project, which pumps renewable power into the grid, was sold by the investment firm ILI Group to Field Energy for an undisclosed price.

Auchteraw is one of several UK sites being developed by Field, the latest venture from an investor with a chequered history in the energy market: Amit Gudka, co-founder of the bust gas and electricity supplier Bulb.

Gudka, 38, left the energy supplier in February 2021, before it collapsed last November amid soaring energy prices in a market that has toppled 31 suppliers since the start of last year.

Bulb was by far the largest failure – it had 1.7 million customers – and it remains in state-funded “special administration”. The ongoing support is expected to cost the taxpayer £2.2bn. A six-month hunt by its administrator, Teneo, has yet to yield a buyer.

An independent review into supplier failures by consultancy Oxera, published this month, found that Bulb had “inadequate levels and horizons for hedging arrangements”, leaving it exposed when wholesale prices soared. Suppliers are expected to lose £110m owed to them when Bulb entered administration.

Its failure has put the spotlight on its co-founders, Gudka and Hayden Wood, who used slick technology and marketing to rapidly grab market share while recording huge losses. They extracted £4m each in a 2018 fundraising, but had their holdings – once valued at more than £100m each – wiped out by the collapse. A long list of investors were also left empty-handed, including JamJar Investments, the fund set up by the founders of Innocent Drinks.

After his departure from Bulb, Gudka, a former Barclays energy trader and DJ, set up Virmati Energy – named after his late grandmother – later rebranding it Field. At the time, Bulb said: “Amit’s work on battery storage has left him compelled to look further into this exciting and emerging field.”

Field aims to create a string of 160 megawatt (MW) battery sites, with the aim of reaching 1.3 gigawatts (GW) by 2024. Sites have been secured in Oldham, Lancashire, and Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, as well as the Loch Ness project. Gudka is aiming to benefit from a shift away from gas to electricity from renewables such as wind, solar and hydro, which relies on battery storage infrastructure.
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Gudka has built the business with a clutch of former “Bulberinos” – as the startup referred to its employees – including former procurement chief Ben Saward and data scientist Beth Rice. He has tapped a pool of high-profile investors including Taavet Hinrikus, founder of the fintech Wise (formerly TransferWise) and Ian Hogarth, founder of live-music data service Songkick. Energy trader Phil Sutterby, who was also an investor in Bulb, is a backer and director of Field.

Boris Johnson with Wood during a visit to Bulb’s HQ, four months before the firm failed. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street

Industry sources have expressed concern that Field may suffer the same fate as Bulb, taking on large debts as it expands that could prove unsustainable if market conditions alter. Last month, the investment firm Triple Point agreed to provide Field a £45.6m debt facility. Gudka declined to comment on events at Bulb or his strategy at Field.

Meanwhile Wood drew criticism last month during testimony to MPs when he revealed that his £250,000 salary remained intact, funded by taxpayers, as he has stayed with Bulb to shore up its future.

The fate of Wood and Gudka’s business shone a light on the relatively youthful executives who set up new energy suppliers after a drive by energy regulator Ofgem to open up the market beyond the big six suppliers since 2015.

Ofgem has suggested current self-assessment checks on directors could be beefed up with a “fit and proper person” test. It would mirror the checks used in the financial services industry, requiring directors of suppliers to prove they have sound financial skills and are capable of managing risk to customers.

Many of the failed suppliers’ directors have rebranded themselves as industry consultants. The founder of PFP Energy, Adrian Leaker, boasts on LinkedIn of growing the business to 90 employees and a £70m turnover, but makes no mention of the fact that it ultimately failed. Leaker said he left PFP in early 2021 before the gas crisis began. He is now listed as an “independent energy consultant”. Former Zebra Power chief executive Mark Royle also lists his profession as consultant.

Ofgem has been condemned for letting companies founded by directors with scant industry experience, and who were putting up little of their own money, run a crucial service. The review by Oxera found that the regulator had allowed founders to take a “free bet” on the energy market.

Many suppliers were squeezed by the jump in wholesale gas prices and the UK energy price cap, meaning they were forced to supply energy at a loss without the option to raise prices. Peter McGirr, the former chief executive of bust supplier Green, said the government had been “blindsided” by the energy crisis despite repeated warnings from industry.

Live and kicking: what former energy bosses are up to now

GAIL PARKER
Supplier Orbit Energy
Went bust November 2021
Customers 65,000
Customers now with Scottish Power
Now Chief commercial officer, The Lettings Hub

In spring 2020, Parker spoke of her pride at Orbit Energy’s contribution to the NHS when it decided to donate all profits from new customers to the service, hoping to raise £2m. Just over 18 months later, Orbit was bust.

Parker has had a varied career, working in admin at the Royal Academy of Dance in the 1990s, before holding senior marketing roles at Royal Mail and British Gas and doing a stint in insurance. She quickly rose from sales and marketing director to run Orbit, which was “on a mission to make energy cleaner and cheaper”. She’s now chief commercial officer at a technology business focused on the home rentals market, offering IT platforms for home insurance, tenancy agreements and references. She declined to comment.

SIMON YARWOOD
Supplier Utility Point
Bust September 2021
Customers 220,000
Customers now with EDF
Now Co-founder, Solace Utilities

Utility Point co-founder Simon Yarwood is a keen skier, but saw his energy supplier crash down a black run last autumn.

He cut his teeth working in financial and commercial roles at accountancy firm Smith & Williamson, car seller Olympian Renault and telecoms specialist 4Com. He entered the energy industry in 2016, setting up Utility Point on the south coast of England two years later.

On LinkedIn, he lists many achievements (right back to his respectable A-level grades at Bournemouth grammar school) but omits Utility Point’s demise from his CV; the Dorset-based company collapsed last year, putting its 197 staff at risk.

Yarwood is now co-founder and finance chief at Solace Utilities. The company, based in Poole, is listed as a nationwide gas and electric “meter operator and meter asset manager”. He has blamed an “incompetent regulator” for the failure of Utility Point and its peers.

SANDIP SALI
Supplier Ampower UK
Bust November 2021
Customers 2,600
Customers now with Yü Energy
Now Managing director, Ampergia

Sandip Sali only set up Ampergia, his current venture, in April but has big ambitions. “Our vision [is] to supply green energy through various means including installing the renewable assets and introducing energy efficient technologies such as; Solar PV, Heat Pumps, EV chargers & Battery solutions,” he says on his LinkedIn profile. The company provides renewable energy generation and storage using specialist technology.

Customers will hope he fares better than he did in his previous venture. The former software sales executive clocked up nearly five years as managing director of Ampower UK before the gas price surge sent it into administration. Sali said the Department for Business and Ofgem had been “responsible for creating chaos”.

PAUL STANLEY
Supplier CNG
Bust November 2021
Customers 41,000
Customers now with Pozitive Energy
Now Voluntary ambassador, Institute of Directors

Dr Paul Stanley boasts three startups, three turnarounds and six “exits” – selling businesses to trade buyers or floating them on the public markets – in his lengthy career. He said the business energy supplier CNG had initially been distressed due to the freezing “beast from the east” storm in 2018, a problem “further undermined” by the 2021 energy crisis. CNG went bankrupt late last year after failing to secure an offer from 29 interested parties.

Stanley now provides pro bono support through the PEPTalks network, is a voluntary regional ambassador for the Institute of Directors and a visiting lecturer at York business school, and is on the board of investor TowerBrook Capital. He said the failure of CNG was “very sad for all involved” and beyond management’s control, due to the failure of four wholesale customers in quick succession.

PETER MCGIRR
Supplier Green
Bust September 2021
Customers 255,000
Acquirer Shell Energy
Now Investor in Switch Business Gas & Power

McGirr spent part of his career in financial services, including at Halifax Bank of Scotland, the bank rescued by Lloyds before the financial crash. He set up Green in 2019 in the north-east of England, using artificial intelligence to underpin its tech.

But last autumn he admitted: “I don’t think we’ll survive the winter if there’s not a material change,” and claimed calls for government help had “fallen on deaf ears”. The business went bust shortly afterwards.

McGirr – who is also a property investor – said he had worked “tirelessly” with Shell to move over customers. In December, he became the majority shareholder in Switch Business Gas & Power, restructuring its operations. He has also acquired energy consultancy Spiral Utilities.

He said his track record in offering good service meant customers should trust him again.

UK

NUCLEAR POWER 

Sizewell C ‘may cost double government estimates and take five years longer to build’


Research into costs of proposed Suffolk power station could further inflame debate over UK nuclear power

Demonstrators protest earlier this month against the building of the Sizewell C nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast. 

Photograph: Gregg Brown/PA


Alex Lawson 

Energy correspondent

THE GUARDIAN

Sun 22 May 2022

The proposed Sizewell C nuclear power station could cost UK taxpayers more than double government estimates and take an extra five years to build, according to research.

Ministers will decide in July whether to approve the development of the Suffolk power station proposed by the French developer EDF. The business department has estimated the government-backed scheme will add an extra £1 a month to household bills to aid construction costs.

But research by the University of Greenwich Business School seen by the Guardian shows the average monthly cost could reach £2.12, or £25.40 a year. At its costliest point, the build could cost taxpayers nearly £4 a month.

That represents the study’s gloomiest forecast, which predicts construction would take 17 years and cost £43.8bn.

The project had been expected to cost £20bn and take 10-12 years to build. Stephen Thomas, a professor at Greenwich Business School, said the average forecast put the cost at £35bn over 15 years, or £2.3bn a year.

The figures could further inflame the debate over the cost and time of building power stations after Boris Johnson last month set a target of building a new nuclear station every year.

EDF last week admitted that Hinkley Point C, the power station it is developing in Somerset, would cost an extra £3bn taking it to up to £26bn. The already-delayed project will take an extra year, and is expected to begin generating electricity in June 2027. EDF had originally planned for it be operational by Christmas 2017.

The French firm said consumers would not be hit by the extra costs at Hinkley Point C, which will be taken on by EDF and China’s CGN, its junior partner in the project.

However, at Sizewell C the government has already committed £100m to the project and plans to use a regulated asset base (RAB) funding model.

RAB funding gives investors a set return during the construction phase of a project, reducing their risk and making an asset more attractive to outside investors. However, it shifts the risk of delays and extra costs on to taxpayers.

The government argues that the RAB model could reduce the project cost of a nuclear power station by more than £30bn over its 60-year lifespan. The model was used in the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5 and the Thames Tideway super-sewer.

A final decision on plans for Sizewell C was recently pushed back from 25 May to 8 July. The site is located north of EDF’s existing Sizewell B plant.

Campaigners argue that the development would be costly and threatens the local environment.

The prospect of extra costs comes as consumers face soaring bills amid the energy crisis. The government has been urged to intervene with annual bills forecast to balloon to nearly £3,000 from October.

Johnson has thrown his weight behind nuclear power as a green option to boost Britain’s energy security in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as he targets net zero emissions by 2050.

Thomas said: “It may not seem a huge amount extra on bills but several of these projects will overlap, meaning consumers paying even more for a long time. If costs are even higher than expected it could become a real burden.”

A spokesperson for Sizewell C said: “The RAB model is a tried and test financing arrangement, which has already been used to raise funds for more than £160bn of UK infrastructure. Applied to Sizewell C, it will bring the cost of finance down and deliver significant savings to consumers.”

A government spokesperson said: “We firmly stand by our assessment that a large-scale project funded under our Nuclear Act would add at most a few pounds a year to typical household energy bills during the early stages of construction, and on average about £1 a month during the full construction phase of the project.”

Belarusians join war seeking to free Ukraine and themselves

1 of 13

Belarus regiment leader, Vadim Prokopiev, practices at a shooting range near Warsaw, Poland, Friday, May 20, 2022. Belarusians are among the foreign fighters who have volunteered to take up arms in Ukraine against Russian forces. They consider the Ukrainians defending their homeland to be their brethren. And by joining their resistance to Russia's onslaught, they hope to weaken the rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and ultimately that of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. 

(AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — One is a restaurateur who fled Belarus when he learned he was about to be arrested for criticizing President Alexander Lukashenko. Another was given the choice of either denouncing fellow opposition activists or being jailed. And one is certain his brother was killed by the country’s security forces.

What united them is their determination to resist Lukashenko by fighting against Russian forces in Ukraine.

Belarusians are among those who have answered a call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for foreign fighters to go to Ukraine and join the International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine. And volunteers have answered that call, given the high stakes in a conflict which many people see as a civilizational battle pitting dictatorship against freedom.

For the Belarusians, who consider Ukrainians a brethren nation, the stakes feel especially high. Russian troops used Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine early in the war, and Lukashenko has publicly stood by longtime ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing him as his “big brother.” Russia, for its part, has pumped billions of dollars into shoring up Lukashenko’s Soviet-style, state-controlled economy with cheap energy and loans.

Weakening Putin, the Belarusian volunteers believe, would also weaken Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994, and create an opening to topple his oppressive government and bring democratic change to the nation of nearly 10 million people.

For many of the Belarusians, their base is Poland, a country along NATO’s eastern flank that borders Belarus and Ukraine and which became a haven for pro-democracy Belarusian dissidents before becoming one for war refugees from Ukraine.

Some of the fighters are already in Poland, and some only pass through briefly in transit on their way to Ukraine.

“We understand that it’s a long journey to free Belarus and the journey starts in Ukraine,” said Vadim Prokopiev, a 50-year-old businessman who used to run restaurants in Minsk. He fled the country after a rumor spread that he would be arrested for saying publicly that the government wasn’t doing enough for small businesses.

“When the Ukraine war will be eventually over, our war will just start. It is impossible to free the country of Belarus without driving Putin’s fascist troops out of Ukraine,” he said.

Prokopiev heads a unit called “Pahonia” that in recent days has been training recruits. The Associated Press interviewed him as he oversaw an exercise that involved firing pistols and other weapons into old cars in simulations of war scenarios. They were being trained by a Polish ex-police officer who is now a private shooting instructor.

Prokopiev wants his men to gain critical battle experience, and he hopes that one day soon a window of opportunity will open for democratic change in Belarus. But he says it will require fighters like himself to be prepared, and for members of the security forces in Belarus to turn against Lukashenko.

Massive street protests against a 2020 election widely seen as fraudulent were met with a brutal crackdown, leading to Prokopiev’s belief that no “velvet revolution” can be expected there.

“Power from Lukashenko can only be taken by force,” he said.

On Saturday, a group of men with another unit, Kastus Kalinouski, gathered in Warsaw in the Belarus House, where piles of sleeping bags, mats and other Ukraine-bound equipment were piled high. They sat together, talking and snacking on chocolate and coffee as they prepared to deploy to Ukraine later in the day. Most didn’t want to be interviewed out of concerns for their security and that of family back home.

The unit, which isn’t formally under Ukraine’s International Legion, was named after the leader of an anti-Russian insurrection in the 19th century who is viewed as a national hero in Belarus.

One willing to describe his motivations was a 19-year-old, Ales, who has lived in Poland since last year. He fled Belarus after the country’s security service, still called the KGB, detained him and forced him to denounce an anti-Lukashenko resistance group in a video recording. He was told he would be jailed if he didn’t comply.

Dressed all in black from a hooded sweatshirt to his boots, he admitted to feeling nervous as the moment arrived to head into Ukraine. He had never received any military training, but would get it once he arrived in Ukraine. But just how much, and where he would be deployed, he didn’t yet know.

He said he was going to fight not only to help Ukraine, “but to make Belarus independent.” He said it was also important for him that people realize that the Belarusian people are very different from the Lukashenko government.

It is a dangerous mission, and several of the volunteers from the Kastus Kalinouski unit have died.

Still, fighting in Ukraine can feel less dangerous than seeking to resist Lukashenko at home, where many activists are in prison in harsh conditions.

Organizing the Kastus Kalinouski recruits was Pavel Kukhta, a 24-year-old who already fought in Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2016, suffering burns and the loss of most of his hearing in one ear. He described his unit as a regiment, meaning it would have hundreds of members, but he wouldn’t give its exact number.

Kukhta said that his half-brother, Nikita Krivtsov, was found dead by hanging in a wooded area outside Minsk in 2020. Police have said there was no evidence of foul play, but Kukhta says he and the rest of the family are certain he was killed for joining the anti-Lukashenko protests.

But he insisted that his support for Ukraine in the war is not about revenge, only about fighting for democratic change.

“If Putin is defeated, Lukashenko will be defeated,” he said.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

RICH FOLKS RIPPING OFF THE SYSTEM

'Power Rangers' actor Austin St. John indicted in PPP scheme

Austin St. John attends the "Power Rangers" premiere at the Westwood Village Theatre in Los Angeles on March 22, 2017. St. John has been indicted on conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges. 

File Photo by Christine Chew/UPI | License Photo

May 20 (UPI) -- A federal grand jury in Texas has indicted Austin St. John, an actor known for playing in the Red Power Ranger in various TV shows and movies, on fraud charges related to a COVID-19 relief scheme.

The indictment said St. John, born Jason Geiger, and 17 other people primarily in Texas took part in a scam to fraudulently obtain $3.5 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program. The PPP was part of the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion relief package meant to assist individuals and businesses financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.


The 18 people named in the indictment face a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas. A release from the office Wednesday names Michael Hill of Mineral Wells, Texas, and Andrew Moran of Lewisville, Texas, as the ringleaders in the scheme.

Prosecutors said Hill recruited people to participate in the scam, while Moran assisted the individuals with fabricating information and submitting applications for the loans.

"On the applications, the defendants are alleged to have misrepresented material information such as the true nature of their business, the number of employees and the amount of payroll," the attorney's office said. "Based on these material misrepresentations, the [Small Business Association] and other financial institutions approved and issued loans to the defendants."

Prosecutors said the defendants didn't use the funding as intended, instead paying Hill and Moran, and transferring money to their own personal accounts. In some cases, they sent money to another of the defendants -- Jonathon Spencer of Rowlett, Texas -- to invest in foreign exchange markets.

A statement posted to St. John's Twitter account by a representative said he didn't know most of the individuals named in the indictment.

"It is our understanding that Austin put his faith, reputation and finances in the hands of third parties whose goals were self-centered and ultimately manipulated and betrayed his trust," the statement read.

"We expect Austin's legal team to successfully defend against these charges and lead to his ultimate exoneration.?

If convicted, each of the defendants face up to 20 years in prison.

RELATED Mississippi sues Brett Favre, dozens of others over welfare spending scheme

St. John appeared in the first two seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to air in the United States starting in 1993. He also played the Red Power Ranger in Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Wild Force, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, and the movie Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie.

Veeve to deploy "Smart Carts" at Albertsons grocery stores later this year

Seattle-based start-up Veeve and grocery chain Albertsons announced a deal Thursday to deploy Veeve Smart Carts in "a few dozen" of its stores by the end of the year. 

Photo courtesy Veeve

May 19 (UPI) -- Start-up Veeve on Thursday announced a deal to deploy its self-checkout grocery carts to some Albertsons grocery store locations.

The Seattle-based company, founded by two former senior Amazon managers, said in a statement that its Veeve Smart Carts will be available to customers at "a few dozen" Albertsons stores throughout the United States later this year.

Veeve Smart Carts use a touch screen that tallies items as they are placed in the cart and a built-in scale for produce, allowing customers to complete their payment in the cart and walk out of the store without having to stop in the checkout line.

"Veeve Smart Carts offer a sophisticated, yet simple self-checkout experience for people who value flexibility and time savings," Alyse Wuson, senior director of Omni Experiences at Albertsons Companies said.

"Our goal is to enhance the grocery experience no matter how our guests choose to shop, and Veeve's technology brings the ease and integration of ecommerce right to the grocery cart."

Albertsons, which had 2,278 food and drug stores in the United States as of December, began testing Veeve carts at two of its stores in Idaho and California in November.

Veeve CEO Shariq Siddiqui told CNBC that customers at those stores have adopted the smart shopping carts, adding they can also allow stores to manage labor shortages by allowing cashiers to shift to other roles.

"Stores are shutting down earlier than ever, just because they're short-staffed so much," Siddiqui said. "One of those stores we deployed in is fully autonomous. There's a lot of momentum going in that direction."

Chris Rupp, Albertsons chief customer and digital officer, said that the adoption of the Smart Carts will not impact jobs.

"For many shoppers, a great in-store experience rests heavily on interactions and support from our incredible in-store teams," Rupp said.

Veeve faces competition from Amazon's Dash Carts, which launched in 2020, while Instacart acquired smart cart maker Caper AI last year, and other grocers such as Kroger have been testing smart cart technology in some stores.

"This deployment is an important and inevitable next step in connecting the consumer's ecommerce activity with a totally new, digitally driven in-store shopping experience," Siddiqui said.

Grid monitor report shows higher power outage risk from heat, wildfires, droughts

Heavy plumes of smoke billow from the Dixie fire above the Plumas National Forest near the Pacific Gas and Electric Rock Creek Power House last July.File Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License PhotoMay 20 (UPI) -- Scorching summer heat, prolonged droughts and wildfire outbreaks will ramp up the risk of power outages across Texas, California and the central and upper Midwest, an assessment from the nation's grid monitor showed.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. released its 2022 Summer Reliability Assessment on Wednesday, which examines areas of concern across the United States as the weather gets hotter between June and September.

The report says most of the North American continent will have adequate resources and electricity this summer except for some areas facing a higher threat of energy emergencies.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center on Thursday noted that most of the United States would experience above-average warmth next season.The hotter it becomes, the higher the demand will be for electricity, while drought conditions could lessen the amount of power available to meet the demand.

The Midwest, according to the report, "faces a capacity shortfall in its north and central areas, resulting in high risk of energy emergencies during peak summer conditions."

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator serves as the region's grid manager and energy market operator.

The NERC report highlighted potential summer risks to the region's electricity supply of extreme temperatures, higher-generation outages and low wind conditions, which could "expose the MISO north and central areas to higher risk of temporary operator-initiated load shedding to maintain system reliability," the report read.

"An elevated risk of energy emergencies persists" across the West as dry conditions pose a threat to the availability of hydroelectric energy that can be transferred, it showed.

However, California should be able to meet peak power demands this summer, as long as there are about 3,400 megawatts of new resources available as scheduled.

Texas suffered catastrophic power issues in the past when 200 people died after the grid failed in February 2021.

In May and June 2021, the report says, the state's system was impacted by widespread solar farm shutdowns.

This summer, Texas officials seem more optimistic about the grid's outcome. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas's interim CEO, Brad Jones, said during a Tuesday press conference he is "confident" about the system's electricity reliability despite record peak demand projections of 77,317 megawatts in the coming months.

France blames bad weather, war for dijon mustard shortage


A heat dome over southern Canada last summer hampered mustard seed crop production, leading to a shortage of dijon mustard this year. 

File Photo by Harish Tyagi/EPA-EFE

May 20 (UPI) -- Supermarkets in France are reporting higher prices and shortages for dijon mustard fueled in part by poor crops last summer and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Mustard producers in France said seed production was down 50% in 2021. One of the largest producers in France, Reine de Dijon, told The Guardian that a so-called heat dome in Canada in July "really dried up the crops."

"In Burgundy, the region had a very wet winter and then three days of cold at the beginning of April last year, so we only harvested about 48% of expectations.

Most of the world's dijon mustard is produced in the Burgundy region of France, but most of the seed is grown in southern Canada, Mashed reported.

Mundus Agri reported that Canada is expected to export about 78,000 metric tons of mustard seed from the 2021-22 growing season, about 41% lower than the 133,000 metric tons projected.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February has exacerbated the shortage. Both countries also grow mustard seeds, but with sanctions on Russia and fighting disrupting the normal course of daily life in Ukraine, exports have been limited.

"The Ukraine, without being a big producer, represented a backup plan," Luc Vandermaesen, managing director of Reine de Dijon, told French business magazine L'Usine Nouvelle.

"We were counting on it to make the connection with the next harvest, but this solution fell through."

French news outlet Sud Ouest reported the price for mustard seeds has doubled compared to a year ago.