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NDP leader Tom Mulcair will sit down with the NDP caucus next week in Saskatoon. (DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
NDP leader Tom Mulcair will sit down with the NDP caucus next week in Saskatoon. (DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Ahead of caucus meeting, Mulcair sets sights on the long game Add to ...

As he sits down with the NDP caucus next week in Saskatoon to prepare for the fall session of Parliament, Thomas Mulcair will no doubt remind his MPs of the warning he issued at the same meeting last year: Popularity is ephemeral and theirs will fluctuate in the lengthy period leading up to the next election.

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With the success of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and the Tory base’s steady support for the party in the face of political difficulties, Mr. Mulcair finds himself the man in the middle. He brought the NDP there by choice, logging more than 64,000 kilometres this summer to sell his brand of “good, competent public administration.” But now he must find a way to get some traction.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Mulcair said Canadians are paying attention to the NDP, whether or not that is reflected in public opinion surveys or the media.

“This is a 15-round match that we are preparing for. It’s not a three-round fight,” Mr. Mulcair said. “This summer was substantive, it was ground-level, it was cross-country.”

The aim is to convince Canadians that New Democrats are action oriented. “The Liberals, who were in power for 13 years with majority governments, did nothing on daycare, did nothing on aboriginal affairs,” Mr. Mulcair said. “Interestingly enough, they talked about the legalization of marijuana but they never got around to that either. We will get to issues such as universal daycare in Canada because we know how to get it done and we believe it’s not only good socially, it’s good economically.”

But the success Mr. Trudeau has had in garnering media attention, and the fact that his party has pushed Conservative support below 30 per cent, is causing some New Democrats to ask whether Mr. Mulcair is on the right track. The NDP, which surprised its own faithful in 2011 by vaulting into the benches of the Official Opposition, is languishing below 25 per cent in the polls, well behind the governing Conservatives and even further behind the Liberals.

They won’t say it on the record – no New Democrat wants to openly express doubt. But privately they question whether Mr. Mulcair has a good team around him, whether he is selling the NDP message with enough gusto, whether he has managed to adequately define himself. And they worry that the NDP bubble may have burst with the death of former leader Jack Layton whose personal popularity propelled the party to second place for the first time in its history.

Some things have gone very well for the New Democrats since Mr. Mulcair took the helm a year and a half ago. The many young, neophyte MPs have proved remarkably competent. Riding associations are being formed in places – mostly in Quebec – where the party had no presence before the 2011 election. Fundraising is going well.

But it’s easy to overlook all that when the NDP is straggling in the public opinion surveys – even if it is down just six points from the last election – and when Mr. Trudeau is getting significantly better marks in leadership polls than Mr. Mulcair.

“Mulcair’s weakest score relates to his vision for Canada,” said Nik Nanos, the president of Nanos Research. Which means, said Mr. Nanos, that “Thomas Mulcair has to take every opportunity to describe what a Thomas Mulcair government would be like and how Canada would be different if he was prime minister.”

That is, in fact, what Mr. Mulcair has been trying to do. Canadians angered about the fiscal follies of unelected senators have heard that frustration expressed by Mr. Mulcair in cities and towns across the country.

He took what he calls a “listening tour” of aboriginal communities. “It is a file,” he said, “that Liberal government after Liberal government, Conservative government after Conservative government, has not taken care of, has just forgotten.”

He went to France and met with that country’s prime minister, a visit arranged in part to demonstrate his capabilities on the international front. But most of his travels, including the France trip, earned little national media coverage. When reporters did want to hear from Mr. Mulcair this summer, it was to get his opinion about Mr. Trudeau’s call for legalizing marijuana.

Some New Democrats blame Mr. Mulcair’s staff for the fact that the NDP seems to be chasing the third party. “The NDP hasn’t taken advantage of being three times the Liberals’ size and being the Official Opposition,” said one party veteran. And the amount of coverage being given to Mr. Trudeau, he said, “absolutely should strike fear into the hearts of New Democrats.”

Others say the calm and deliberate approach adopted by their leader will pay off in the end. Joe Cressy, a member of the NDP federal council, said substance will ultimately trump celebrity.

“If you were to ask people in research, what do you think of Tom Mulcair, you would probably hear ‘tough,’ ‘smart,’ and ‘looks like a prime minister,’” Mr. Cressy said. “That’s far more valuable in 2013 than ‘Oh, he’s kind of interesting, a little sexy.’”

Layton stalwart Brad Lavigne, who quit the Opposition Leader’s Office when Mr. Mulcair took over the party, points out that the Liberals have surged every time they they have elected a new leader, then they have taken a steep dive.

“Canadians do not wake up every day and look at media coverage and decide on the basis of that alone how they are going to vote in two years’ time,” Mr. Lavigne said. “They are going to be deciding on the basis of who do they want to lead, who is competent and who has the leadership skills to replace Stephen Harper as prime minister.”

Saskatchewan was chosen as the site of next week’s caucus meeting because the redistribution of riding boundaries gives the NDP hope that gains are possible in that province. And Mr. Mulcair says he is convinced that Mr. Harper’s time is running out.

All over Canada, he said, “people are putting their arm on my shoulder and just saying, ‘When are you going to get rid of him?’”

But with the NDP trailing significantly, there is reason to question whether the party can even hold onto the new ridings it won in 2011 in Quebec and Ontario.

Will Canadians eager for change be turning to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals?

Mr. Mulcair said he is convinced his hard work will triumph.

“We know exactly what we have to do before the next campaign,” he said, “and we are just going to keep doing it.”

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Employees and guests of Silvercorp Metals attend the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, March 8, 2010. Silvercorp Metals Inc. is a Canadian-based primary silver producer with mining operations and development projects located in China and Canada. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)
Employees and guests of Silvercorp Metals attend the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, March 8, 2010. Silvercorp Metals Inc. is a Canadian-based primary silver producer with mining operations and development projects located in China and Canada. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)

RCMP eyes Silvercorp investigation Add to ...

The RCMP is formally assessing whether to pursue a full-blown investigation of Silvercorp Metals Inc. after a Globe and Mail story showed the Vancouver company may be helping pay for a police probe against its detractors in China.

Canadian citizen Huang Kun, who contributed research to a negative analyst report that questioned Silvercorp’s production from its mining operations in China, was arrested by Chinese police in December. The company strongly rebutted the report’s assertions. Mr. Huang has been unable to leave the country for more than eight months while police attempt to build a case of “criminal defamation” against him.

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After being released from custody in January, Mr. Huang was rearrested in July and is currently in jail in the city of Luoyang in Henan province, where Silvercorp’s flagship mine is located. The Globe and Mail has obtained documents that may suggest Silvercorp and its executives were working in concert with local authorities and helping to pay for the investigation against the Canadian and his associates in China.

Copies of receipts for hotel stays made by one of the police officers investigating Mr. Huang in China appear to show they were paid for by a Silvercorp subsidiary. In a Globe interview before he was rearrested, Mr. Huang also provided licence plate numbers to vehicles he said were used to transport him by the Chinese police. The licence numbers match those of vehicles registered to Silvercorp’s subsidiary in China.

As well, a court filing made by Silvercorp in New York appears to contain information from one of Mr. Huang’s laptops that was seized by the Chinese police when he was arrested.

Silvercorp chairman and chief executive officer Feng Rui has strongly denied the allegations and accuses Mr. Huang and his associates, a group of short-sellers including Mr. Huang’s employer Jon Carnes of EOS Funds in Vancouver, of lying and fabricating evidence. Silvercorp officials did not respond Friday to requests for comment on the RCMP probe.

Mr. Huang’s detention appears to be part of a larger push-back by Chinese authorities against those challenging the business practices and credibility of Chinese firms. Legal experts have said Silvercorp’s alleged actions could be a violation of both Chinese and Canadian law.

Now the RCMP is looking into the matter in response to a complaint. “What we would call this would be an assessment phase. That’s what we call it. Somebody has made a complaint,” said RCMP Superintendent Eric Mattson, the officer in charge of federal policing for southern Alberta.

The case is being handled by the RCMP’s International Anti-Corruption Unit in Calgary. The bureau is responsible for investigating possible illegal actions by Canadian firms operating in foreign jurisdictions including cases of bribing foreign officials.

“Something that would be an offence in Canada, whether it occurs outside of Canada, is an offence in Canada,” Superintendent Mattson said. In the case of Silvercorp, the Mounties will determine whether or not there is sufficient evidence to move forward and the probe “may or may not” move into a formal investigation phase, he said.

In 2011, the Anti-Corruption unit was responsible for a case that saw Calgary’s Niko Resources Ltd. plead guilty to a charge of violating Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. Niko paid a fine of $8.2-million as part of a sentence imposed for providing the former state minister for energy and mineral resources of Bangladesh with a vehicle worth more than $190,000, as well as paying for approximately $5,000 worth of non-business travel for the same government official.

The International Anti-Corruption Unit’s probe into Silvercorp is separate from an investigation opened by the Mounties’ Integrated Market Enforcement Team (IMET) in Vancouver last year. The IMET investigation was launched at the request of Silvercorp after Mr. Huang, Mr. Carnes and others anonymously published the negative research report on Silvercorp last year.

Mr. Huang, who has yet to be formally charged, said in a previous interview that the Chinese police interrogating him had claimed their investigation was being conducted in conjunction with the RCMP.

Duncan Pound, an RCMP media relations officer in British Columbia, said that is not true. “We don’t have any kind of joint investigation going on with the Chinese in this case.”

Amanda Reid, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa, said “Canadian officials are providing consular assistance,” to Mr. Huang, who is from Vancouver.

“We are in contact with local authorities and monitoring the situation closely,” Ms. Reid said.

Silvercorp has previously provided third-party reports countering the short-sellers’ allegations that the company has overstated its production and resource grades. The company also hired KPMG Forensics to audit its financial statements. Silvercorp said KPMG gave it a clean bill of health, although the company did not release the report to the public.

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Norton Rose loses 'great leader' over merger Add to ...

Ogilvy Renault LLP’s decision to become part of the London-based empire of the massive international law firm Norton Rose has cost it its chairman emeritus and one of its most senior lawyers, well-known international arbitrator Yves Fortier.

The firm, now known as Norton Rose OR LLP, announced Friday that Mr. Fortier, regarded as one of the world’s top arbitrators, is leaving to continue his career as an arbitrator independently, after a half-century with the Montreal-based firm.

In a statement, Mr. Fortier, 76, said being a member of a large global firm with clients all over the world created the risk of too many potential conflicts while he acted as an arbitrator, weighing international disputes between businesses or governments.

“Being an international arbitrator as a member of a global legal practice can create inherent conflict risks,” Mr. Fortier said. “My decision to leave the firm was motivated by the need to continue my international arbitration and mediation practice in an independent and impartial way.”

Mr. Fortier, the firm’s chairman emeritus, was its chairman from 1992 to 2009. He said it was not easy to leave his firm: “This was a very emotional decision for me to take given that the firm has been my home for more than 50 years.”

His reputation extends far beyond legal circles. From 1988 to 1992, Mr. Fortier served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, with Norton Rose partner Brian Mulroney in the prime minister’s office. He was elected vice-president of the UN General Assembly and served as president of the Security Council. He is a judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and honorary vice-president of the London Court of International Arbitration.

Mr. Fortier is also a member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne and in that capacity, he was an arbitrator at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City in 2002 and in Vancouver in 2010, part of a team tasked with presiding over athletic disputes, including those involving drug testing. Mr. Fortier is a companion of the Order of Canada.

John Coleman, Norton Rose OR’s managing partner, praised Mr. Fortier as one of the firm’s "great leaders" who helped spread the former Ogilvy Renault's name around the world.

“He is a distinguished jurist who has earned a reputation for being one of the best international arbitrators in the world, and we are very appreciative of his talent and leadership which helped build a global reputation for our firm including a highly successful international arbitration group.”

Earlier this month, Norton Rose OR announced that it was merging with another Canadian firm, Calgary-based Macleod Dixon LLP, to create a “powerhouse” with a strong oil-patch presence.

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Schulich steps up for Birchcliff Add to ...

Seymour Schulich is keeping the faith in natural gas play Birchcliff Energy, taking down another $12.4-million of stock in the company on Tuesday as part of a $62-million financing.

Mr. Schulich, a veteran resource company financier, is putting more money into a company that's developing promising but expensive Alberta properties at a time when natural gas prices are relatively soft. He already owns 18 per cent of Birchcliff , and just acquired another 2 million share in the company at $6.20 each.

Birchcliff raised another $49.6-million by selling 8 million shares to the public at the same price. GMP Securities and Scotia Capital led the bought deal, which played out at a 3.9 per cent discount to where the stock was trading on the TSX. This is the latest in a series of equity financings from energy companies, which are getting a second look from investors after a spike in oil prices.

The $62-million stock sale comes a month after Birchcliff boosted its credit facility to $305-million from $240-million. Birchcliff had drawn down $229-million of that facility when it negotiated additional loans.

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Norwegian skier Aksel Lund Svindal makes a turn while posting the fastest time so far during the first alpine skiing Men's World Cup downhill of the season in Lake Louise, Alberta, November 24, 2012. (MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS)
Norwegian skier Aksel Lund Svindal makes a turn while posting the fastest time so far during the first alpine skiing Men's World Cup downhill of the season in Lake Louise, Alberta, November 24, 2012. (MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS)

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal wins World Cup downhill race at Lake Louise Add to ...

The continued European domination of the World Cup alpine circuit was demonstrated Saturday as the men’s speed season kicked off in Lake Louise, Alta., but some North American underdogs proved they are serious contenders for the podium.

They included Canada’s Erik Guay, of Mont-Tremblant, Que., who had surgery to his right knee this fall and wasn’t even sure he would be ready to race, yet managed to finish an impressive sixth in the men’s downhill.

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“If I look at where I was six weeks ago, I’m absolutely ecstatic with the progress I have made since, and to be here, and be [6th] I’m super satisfied,” said Guay, who pumped his fists at the bottom of the course.

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal, a two-time overall champion, who has had a history of success at Lake Louise with five podiums, dominated the course in 1 minute 48.31 seconds.

He had a comfortable lead over Austria’s Max Franz who was 0.64 seconds back. Tied for third were Klaus Kroell of Austria and Marco Sullivan of the United States. They were 0.66 seconds off the pace.

Starting 22nd out of the gate, Svindal said with a strong head wind at the top and clouds rolling in, he wasn’t sure he could win. But he was encouraged when he saw Guay, just two racers ahead of him, post a solid time.

“It’s still possible,” said Svindal of his thoughts at the top of the course. “I trimmed a little distance everywhere and tucked a little bit harder.”

Svindal, who won the crystal globe in the super giant slalom last season, is expecting good things on Sunday when he races the super G. He has also won it here three times.

The Austrian team once again showed its deep talent pool.

At 23, Franz, is an up-and-comer on the squad. He was second out of the gate, and benefited from a clean track, to grab his first World Cup podium, nudging teammate Kroell, last season’s overall downhill champion, into third.

“It’s a breakthrough,” Franz said of his own performance, “A very important result.”

He said the Austrians have 10 top-notch skiers who fight within the squad for results.

“It’s a very strong team,” he said.

The race, held under mostly blue skies with the temperature hovering around -5C, followed a scuttled day of training Friday due to poor visibility.

Kroell, who broke a bone in his right foot during a crash in a motocross race last April, turned in a performance that he described as “better than expected” after a rough off-season of training.

“After my injury there was no more pressure for me,” he said.

Joining Kroell on the podium was Sullivan who overcame major obstacles to even be here. He had a lousy start position – 42nd – and endured a lengthy race delay as a helicopter was called in to remove Italian racer Mattia Casse, who crashed into the netting and suffered a left shoulder injury, from the course.

At 32, Sullivan now has only four World Cup podiums in his career, has battled a bad back, lost sponsors and had to fight for a spot on the U.S. national team going into this season. He said he was shooting for a top 10 and was shocked when he crossed the finish line with the board flashing third.

“Absolutely, it’s been tough,” Sullivan said, “I never lost complete hope.”

The Canadian Cowboys have also struggled in recent years – mostly with injury.

Guay, who won the crystal globe in the super G in 2010 and will defend his world championship in the downhill in February, has suffered recent problems with his knee and his back. But on Saturday, he said his knee wasn’t bothering him at all. He was 1.17 seconds behind Svidal’s winning time.

“I kind of still have a couple of little mistakes that are keeping me off the podium right now,” he said, adding that with little time on snow in the super G lately, his expectations aren’t high for Sunday’s race.

Calgary’s Jan Hudec, who had two podiums last season, also had a troublesome knee operated on this fall and has a long history with knee problems, finished 17th .

“I had high expectations coming into this race even though I didn’t do a lot of training,” he said, “Everything was ready today. Skis were good, I felt set. So I was a little bit disappointed to be that far behind, but some good points, and I have to look for tomorrow.”

Manuel Osborne-Paradis, who also lives in Calgary, marked his return to the circuit after breaking a leg and tearing a ligament in his knee almost two years ago, finished 22nd.

“It’s nice to know that you can still be competitive,” he said, “With training, you never really know.”

Calgary’s John Kucera, also got back into the World Cup gates for the first time since a horrific crash at Lake Louise in 2009 left him with a badly broken leg. He finished 36th  in Saturday’s downhill. He said he was a little nervous before the race, but was relieved once he got on course to find he could still be competitive with some of the fastest guys.

“I’m just hoping that every weekend I can make a step forward,” he said, “It’s going to be a slow process unfortunately. I’m not a very patient person, but I think I’m going to have to be.”

The other Canadians, including Ben Thomsen, who posted solid times in training, finished 45th after hitting a rock at the top of the course, while Jeffrey Frisch was 48th. Meanwhile, Dustin Cook and Conrad Pridy did not finish.

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From page to screen

Anthony Horowitz avoids being pigeonholed by working on six very different projects at the same time

There's a sheet of paper stuck to the window of my studio - a list of deadlines. This is what I'm doing in the next few weeks.

Alex Rider 4: My new children's book, variously entitled Eagle Eye, Eagle Strike, Game-slayer or Never Play Dead. The title is the hardest part.

Alex Rider 1: Stormbreaker - I've been commissioned to write the screenplay and I'm 50 pages in.

Alex Rider 3: Skeleton Key - my American publisher has demanded extensive changes to the last book as he thinks the CIA agents aren't sympathetic enough.

Murder in Mind 3: I'm writing two episodes for the series I created for the BBC.

The Killing Joke: My first adult novel, if anyone will actually buy it. My agent wants me to rewrite the second half.

Magick : A new television series I've written for Jill Green, the producer to whom I'm also married. I'm on the third draft of the first episode and she wants it by Friday.

For as long as I can remember I've been working at this pace - about 10 hours a day, often seven days a week. I have a studio at the bottom of my garden here in Crouch End, north London. The studio - somewhere private for me - was the reason we moved here in the first place.

Curiously, until I created Alex Rider, my teenage spy, I was virtually unknown all over the world - with the exception of Belgium, where I have always been very well regarded. Indeed, I once thought my epitaph would have to read: "Big in Belgium". Everything has changed with Alex. We've sold so many copies that suddenly, it seems, I have a name.

But there has always been a positive side to obscurity. What other writers are lucky enough to work in so many fields - books, television, cinema, theatre - and so many genres? Next year, for example, my second feature film, The Gathering, comes out. This is not a cheerful children's adventure but a very dark and violent horror film. The problem with being well known as a writer is that you are inevitably well known for a specific sort of writing - and suddenly you're pigeonholed. Fame may open financial windows, but I would have said it closes creative ones.

I am, and always have been, a compulsive storyteller. Everything that happens to me, everything I see or read about, suggests a story. The Gathering was inspired by seeing a bad accident on the A12 (it was the people slowing down and watching that interested me). Two years ago, I briefly lost my dog while walking in the park; the result is a two-part thriller, Menace, to be shown later this year on Channel 5.

It is probably the love of story that has led me to children's books. It's a genre that allows me to concentrate on pace, adventure and surprise, all of which excite me, rather than description, philosophy or profound character analysis, which largely don't. I have always found television writing and children's books very similar in this respect. If you're writing for a primetime, mainstream audience, pace and energy have to be your first considerations. It doesn't surprise me that a great many children seem to be perfectly comfortable watching adult TV. I sometimes think of television - a series of joined-together pictures - as a massively oversized comic strip.

I do have certain rules. I never work on two major projects in one day - a TV episode and a children's book, for example. It's important to keep all the different ideas compartmentalised. I always take at least one day off when I finish a script. I never start writing until I've worked out a very detailed structure. But when I do write, I work extremely quickly. William Goldman, who is something of a hero of mine, recommends this approach in Adventures in the Screen Trade, but my own refinement is never to deliver anything to producers or publishers too soon. If they think you've done it too quickly, they'll appreciate it less.

· The latest Alex Rider book, Skeleton Key, is published by Walker Books.


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Plastic fantastic?

Nip'n'Tuck, by Kathy Lette (Picador, £6.99)

Kathy Lette has forged a writing career out of plagiarising her own life. In 1979, when she was young and living in Australia, she wrote Puberty Blues. Later, she pre-empted the Bridget Jones phenomenon by penning single-woman-has-career-and-girlfriends novels. Then she got married and had kids. Cue mum-lit books Foetal Attraction and Mad Cows. Now Lette is getting on: "It seems to me all women over 39 find themselves transmogrified into demented Barbie wannabes desperate for an elixir to combat the incurable disease afflicting females - age." Thus begins TV journalist Lizzie's bout of the birthday blues, not helped by the fact that her husband Hugo, a surgeon, is having an affair with a younger woman, who is blonde, with huge "bazookas". Women like Lette's books because she tells it like it is. Personally, I find them hard to stomach. They may be zeitgeisty but all that means is you've heard the jokes before and they aren't very funny. Granny-lit, anyone?
Jemima Hunt

New Writing 11, edited by Andrew O'Hagan & Colm Tóibín (Picador, £8.99)

Authors Andrew O'Hagan and Colm Tóibín have compiled new work from acclaimed writers and poets: Jackie Kay, Jenny Diski, Nick Laird, Michel Faber and many more. According to the prologue, the writing represents "the primacy of the imagination and the power of language". Mary-Kay Wilmers writes about Russia, Trotsky's assassination in Mexico City and her attempt to get an interview with the KGB. Most of the writing is contemporary - much of it set in Ireland and Scotland - but the narratives are shaped by links with the past. A girl trying to catch a plane home is delayed by an Orange march in Antrim. The first open homosexual in Glasgow's underworld remembers how it used to be. An American on a train asks a visiting English traveller to pretend to be De Tocqueville. "What do you think of us Americans?" he asks. Spurning nostalgia, the stories breathe life into new worlds.

Magic, edited by Sarah Brown & Gil McNeil (Bloomsbury, £6.99)

This anthology in aid of the National Council for One Parent Families Magic Million Appeal boasts a starry line-up: Fay Weldon, Meera Syal, Joanne Harris, John O'Farrell, among others. Sarah Brown explains in the introduction that she became involved in 1999 when she and Gordon hosted a reception at 11 Downing Street. JK Rowling has written the foreword. In aid of a good cause we have stories that celebrate the magic of everyday life; surprise arrivals, falling in love, the wonder of birth and plain, old-fashioned wizardry. In "Flamenco", by Andrea Ashworth, teenager Emmy discovers her feelings for Jed Frazer when his name is spelled out on a ouija board. In Joanne Harris's "Class of '81", a coven of former classmates reassemble. "On the grapevine I'd heard that Hannah had married an astral healer and Desiree McKelpie worked love spells for royals and Hollywood film stars." For grown-up Harry Potter fans everywhere.

No Bones, by Anna Burns (Flamingo, £6.99)

On the streets of the Ardoyne in 1972, the British Army is offering 50p to every kid returning rubber bullets to the barracks. Twelve-year-old Amelia Lovett stands to cash in to the tune of £18.50, but she protects her hoard with the same tenacity with which she later clings on to sanity throughout the rocky route to womanhood. Burns compiles a brilliant insider analysis of the violence. While you may have thought that the situation in Northern Ireland had something to do with politicians, Burns points instead to rabid figures such as Amelia's neighbour, Mrs Lavery, "who didn't want a reconciliation - she wanted mayhem and war and blood and dead bodies". No Bones is a harrowing debut, constructed with the urgency of a book Burns clearly had to write. Her account of a grocery-trip breakdown, halfway between the breakfast cereal and the baked beans, is almost too painful to bear. This ought to be a compulsory marching-season read.
Alfred Hickling

The Comedy Man, by DJ Taylor (Duckworth, £5.99)

According to DJ Taylor, life is a bit like a stand-up comedy routine: an expectant entrance, a brief struggle to make the best of the given material, and a sad, slow shuffle towards inevitable death. Taylor's hero, Ted King, is a lugubrious veteran who has made his entrances and exits and is now drifting towards oblivion, sans script, sans partner, sans everything. For a brief period in the 1970s, King and his terrier-like other half, Arthur Upward, ranked somewhere in the nation's consciousness below Morecambe & Wise but above Mike & Bernie Winters. Now that the TV commissions have dried up and a dicky heart has done for Upward, the surviving half of the duo is left to reflect on what might have been. Taylor is a stylist in the Graham Greene league - so convincing is his evocation of the fag-end of variety that you will be reaching for the A-Z of British Comedy to see if Arthur Upward really did appear as a randy highwayman in one of the last Carry On films.

Sixteen, by PP Hartnett (Sceptre, £6.99)

If you think boy bands are the product of a sinister paedophile conspiracy, this novel will do very little to dissuade you. Carl is a thirtyish music business executive who cruises the public swimming pools of Greater Manchester in the interests of talent-spotting. Regular sightings of sweet-voiced 16-year-old Steven and his musically versatile mate Michael prompt Carl to mix a bit of business with pleasure. Soon Steven will be plastered over every teenage bedroom wall, though Carl reserves exclusive rights between the covers. This started life as a short story and ends like one, with a denouement which would be fine after 13 pages but feels cursory after 300. Gay sex and swimming pools have already been done more masterfully by Alan Hollinghurst, and your ability to appreciate Hartnett's prose depends on how palatable you find descriptions such as "gargling that tangy teenage ejaculate that would taste so good". Mmm, delicious.

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Love sex family friends

Books at bedtime

Who would you rather spend the night with? Darcy or Deronda? Moll Flanders or Bridget Jones? Kate Mikhail delves between the covers to see what our literary lust says about us

Mr Darcy or Bertie Wooster? Moll Flanders or Amy Dorrit? When it comes to identifying literary romantic ideals, it seems we're all pretty predictable: the mean and moody Darcy and good-time Moll winning hands down in a recent poll to name the most widely fancied fictional heroes. Which is all well and good, except our literary lust lets fantasy triumph at reality's expense.

'People often choose the opposite of what would be the best relationship material for them,' says relationship expert Mary Balfour, commenting on The Big Romance ( survey entitled 'The literary character you would most like to date'. 'They might say they want someone with a sense of humour and then go for Mr Darcy, who's got no sense of humour - he's dark and sexy, and really rather horrid.'

Stereotypes are hardly subtle, but Balfour, who owns dating agency Drawing Down the Moon, says she sees her members falling into the same fantasy traps time and again. To an uninvolved outsider, she says, these patterns are 'so obvious', but for the person involved they can be invisible and destructive because 'someone who sticks to their stereotype won't meet anybody, because these fictitious people don't exist'. Added to this, today's quest for a perfect life means our relationship wish list is longer than ever, making us 'much fussier and much pickier' than ever before. 'Some people,' Balfour stresses, 'are so picky, they will keep picking and never find anybody.'

The 44 literary characters proposed by the website survey were topped by Moll Flanders on the women's side (6,397 votes), followed by Lara of Dr Zhivago, (second with 5,286), Bridget Jones (third with 4,618) down to Amy Dorrit (98) via Scarlett O'Hara (1,882) and Charlotte Gray (231). First place on the men's list was carried off by Mr Darcy (7,013), followed by Daniel Deronda (6,265) and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing (4,221), down to the amiable Bertie Wooster at the bottom of the pile (98), via Odysseus (856) and About A Boy's Will Freeman (281).

Clinical psychologist Dr David Nias of the University of London, for one, is not surprised by the results, which he blames on our constant hunger for excitement, because: 'Life can be boring and we want something to brighten it up. The men who come bottom of the list - Gabriel Oak, Charles Chipping, Jeeves and Bertie - would make wonderful partners, but they're too nice. They're vulnerable. They're not the dominant type. And that's interpreted as boring.'

The magnetic pull of recurring stereotypes, he says, is an example of our emotions getting the better of our intellect: 'Basically we want someone who is exciting and a bit of fun. At the extreme, that would be the gangster's moll syndrome: women who go for men who are obviously going to ruin their life.' As for why women always go for the 'rogues and rascals', the only theory that really stands up is, according to Nias, the evolutionary one, because 'in the past, survival might have hinged on having a partner who was a bit of a psychopath and who would kill for food'.

As for men, this evolutionary pull, as is well known, translates into women who can bear a lot of children and reproduce his genes - hence the appeal of big hips and curvaceous figures. But the danger of blindly giving in to stereotypes, warns Nias, is that people 'will never really be satisfied and will keep moving on, because they've got this ideal in their mind. They know what they're looking for, but they know they can't get it.'

Julia Cole, relationship counsellor, psycho-sexual therapist and author of How to Stay Together Forever sees the literary-romance survey as proof that age-old stereotypes are holding firm despite social changes, with men looking for fun in Moll Flanders, while the women want a man who 'is sensible and reliable and who keeps his passion for them' - Darcy and Deronda fitting perfectly into the literary romantic sub-category of 'principled men who will deliver'. Though 'a bit of a loser', Bridget Jones manages to steal third prize thanks to her sense of humour and her vulnerability, argues Cole, which plays on men's desire to protect, while the more headstrong female contenders in the list present men with the challenge of an 'untamed filly'.

Harmless fun, maybe, but Mary Balfour insists the survey is potentially very revealing and a useful tool in the dating game, as the fictional lovers people identify as their ideal date say a lot about what they are really looking for. And while there's no hard-and-fast recipe for picking a winner, Balfour suggests matching past partners with their literary equivalent to highlight potentially tell-tale patterns. 'Most of us are aware of these patterns to a greater or lesser extent,' says Balfour, 'but the more you are aware, the less power the stereotypes will have over you.'

Nias - whose own research suggests that it's not actually opposites that attract, but rather like which attracts like - says that we need to be more rational if the pitfalls of falling for the same old stereotypes, literary and otherwise, are to be avoided: 'People need to think these things through and take advice from friends and family,' he advises, 'because a lot of people are capable of falling in love with lots of different types of people, so they might as well choose the best type to start with.'

Mary Balfour's book, Smart Dating: How to Find a Man (£10, Element Books), is on sale now

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Banning Kindles is no way of celebrating books

Is your e-reader turning you into a 'robot'? A campaign from Hay bookseller Derek Addyman to drive Amazon's Kindle out of town is just silly
Hay-on-whine … Derek Addyman has lamented the Kindle's intrusion into the annual books festival.
Hay-on-whine … Derek Addyman has lamented the Kindle's intrusion into the annual books festival. Photograph: Alamy

We all love secondhand bookshops, don't we – that heady pleasure of browsing through shelves, or rummaging through boxes to find vintage paperbacks and forgotten gems. I'm a particular fan of that secondhand bookshop heaven Hay-on-Wye, but I'm puzzled by the Hay bookseller Derek Addyman, who seems to have started a bizarre campaign to drive Kindles out of town.

"Booksellers here definitely want them banned," he told the Daily Mail, describing people "walking around with them" – or, as you might say, reading – as "robots in another world". According to Addyman, Kindles are "our enemy", they're "just a phase ... [which] won't last".

"Kindles have no place at this festival which is supposed to be a celebration of the written word," he added, "and books."

Maybe we should take Addyman's remarks with the customary pinch of salt – after all, Hay booksellers are famously good at drumming up publicity – but surely Kindles are, well, all about reading books.

Now some may be fearful of Amazon, and perhaps with good reason, but attacking people who read ebooks, or suggesting that ebooks aren't really books at all, is just plain silly. E-readers, which have been getting progressively better and cheaper, are not a phase. They are not the enemy of books, and neither are those of us who use them.

The pleasures of stumbling upon that book you never knew you wanted on a dusty shelf – a pleasure that no e-reader can ever replace – have always depended on the wisdom of booksellers, especially in the kind of ramshackle secondhand bookshop that I love. I wonder what's become of that wisdom in Hay?


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Will a spell in prison free Chris Huhne's inner novelist?

Now that the former Lib Dem politician has a little thinking space, a Jeffrey Archer-style prison diary feels inevitable
Chris Huhne
A cell of his own … will Chris Huhne join other literary figures who penned great works in prison? Photograph: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images

During the weekend, the recently convicted high flyer Chris Huhne, immured in Wanno, as its inmates call HMP Wandsworth, was reported to be "reading a lot, mainly novels".

Who has not, at some time or other, entertained the fantasy of all the reading they might do during a sustained spell of leisure? This might not have involved enforced leisure in prison, but let's say it applies. My wish list of cellblock reading includes Richardson's Clarissa, the complete Jane Austen, Byron's Letters and possibly the King James Bible (why not?). When PG Wodehouse was interned by the Nazis at the beginning of the second world war, he took just one book: the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Presumably, in Wanno, things are a bit different with an e-reader.

Prison – variously rendered as the nick, the slammer, coop, clink, cooler, glasshouse – has always had a literary dimension. Writers in prison, novels about prison. As an existential experience, the deprivation of liberty has been known to inspire a creative response. In simple plot terms, it's a winner. Turn the key on the cell door and you pose the question: how and when will the captive escape? It's a potent variation on the oldest question in the book: what happened next?

In the literary psychodrama of prison, the imposition of "durance vile" (a long prison sentence) was often mixed up with religious persecution and state repression. John Bunyan conceived The Pilgrim's Progress in Bedford County Jail. Walter Raleigh wrote the first volume of his History of the World in the Tower of London. Subsequently, the threat of prison became another kind of literary criticism. Daniel Defoe, a great survivor, was put in the stocks for his published opinions, and lived to tell the tale (many didn't).

In the heyday of Grub Street, books and penury went hand in hand. Many writers and journalists worked in the shadow of the debtor's prison. John Dickens, the father of the novelist, was thrown into the Marshalsea for debt, an experience young Charles never forgot – and used to brilliant effect in Little Dorrit.

But there's a danger in letting fiction romanticise prison. Victorian jails could be fatal destinations. Oscar Wilde's life was effectively cut short by his two years of hard labour in the 1890s. His experience yields perhaps two of the greatest literary responses to prison, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and his neglected masterpiece, De Profundis.

After Wilde, a short list of writers in prison includes Jean Genet, Arthur Koestler and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the public response becomes steadily ironised. The story is told of Picasso, who was invited to contribute to a fund to help Russian writers out of the gulag: he refused. They write better in prison, he said.

And it can be true. Jeffrey Archer has never won any prizes for his prose – he probably wouldn't want to – but his three prison diaries have an honesty and directness, mixed with quality reportage, that put them into a different league from his fiction.

Will Chris Huhne use his enforced leisure to write? As the old saying goes: keep a journal, and it will keep you. Huhne might be short of money, and his prison story will have a market, so he may well write something. With a bit of luck those novels he's reading now will give him a boost.


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Aggreko to power up Olympics

A UK company is to supply temporary power generation equipment for the Beijing 2008 Olympic games in a deal worth $35m (£18m).

Glasgow-based Aggreko will today announce it is providing up to 160MW of power across 40 Olympic venues in six cities, enough to supply 150,000 homes.

Its power generation equipment will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies at the National Stadium in Beijing, as well as for lighting and camera equipment at the various stadiums and the international broadcasting centre. It will employ about 200 staff on the contract, many of whom will be recruited in China.

Chief executive Rupert Soames said the contract was one of the largest ever awarded for temporary power for a sporting event. The deal builds on an earlier provisional agreement between Aggreko and the Beijing Olympic Committee, and follows similar contracts won by the company for other Olympics, including the games in Salt Lake City and Atlanta.

In December, Aggreko upgraded market expectations for the second time in three months, saying operating profits for the year would rise by about 50%. It said growth in emerging markets was particularly strong, making up for a slowdown in the US which accounts for a third of revenues. Even in the US, only 20% of its business is related to the construction and consumer sectors, which are the ones likely to be hardest hit by any transatlantic downturn.

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If the market can't control excessive pay, the state will have to step in

Shareholders won't defend their own interests. Directors won't stop pushing up other directors' rewards. The only solution is bold government measures
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It's a shame the government's effort to crack down on excessive boardroom pay proposals – due by the end of the month – coincides with the arrival of the bonus season at the big banks. There's a danger that two related issues become condensed into one. And it would be disgraceful if the government tries to claim that lower bonuses at banks, which will happen anyway, is evidence that it has found a way to tame the broader surge in executive pay.

Let's deal with the two issues separately. First, the banks. Bonuses will fall because profits in investment banking, the source of most of the big handouts, will be down. The relationship is mechanical, or at least roughly so. But the hot issue in banking is whether the bonus machine has been programmed to privilege employees over shareholders. The answer should be obvious: of course it has. Investors are being ripped off royally.

Take Barclays. It's has been one of the healthier banks during the crisis but this superiority requires heavy qualification. For the past three years Barclays hasn't earned returns in excess of its cost of capital, a basic measure of success at any profit-seeking company. Yet last year 231 key staff at Barclays earned an average of £2.4m each and chief executive Bob Diamond's right-hand men, Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci, got £10m each. How is that even possible?

Well, shareholders haven't defended their share of the pie. They have swallowed whole the argument from the likes of Barclays that big bonuses are needed to retain and attract staff to be competitive. That pitch has been nonsense for years, but is doubly nonsense this time: competition for investment bankers is almost non-existent. There have been layoffs over the past year, and everybody knows there are more to come. If big shareholders in banks can't seize this moment to arrest the rip-off, then they never will. And if shrunken share prices can't stiffen the sinews, one is tempted to say fund managers themselves should be forced to disclose their pay packets (there's an idea for Vince Cable, the business secretary).

By contrast, the rise in board pay outside banking is a subtler phenomenon. Instead of an annual grab, pay has risen with the aid of over-complicated incentive arrangements drawn up by "remuneration" consultants and rubber-stamped by non-executive directors who serve, or served, as directors elsewhere.

Cable knows that, and it was encouraging to read last week's leaks that he wants to break this "old boys' club". A fine ambition, but let's see if deeds match words. A ban on executive directors chairing other companies' pay committees appears to be under consideration. A ban would not be unhelpful, but nor would it be a cure-all. If greater shareholder involvement is considered a good thing (and it seems to be), why not allow investors to propose their own candidates to chair pay committees? That might stir the mix more violently if employee representatives on pay committees is deemed a non-starter.

It is equally important that Cable demands that pay arrangements be simplified. The complexity has become absurd. Most directors of FTSE 100 and mid-250 companies now enjoy at least two incentive plans and an annual bonus. What's more, it is only in cases of extreme catastrophe that a bonus is not awarded. These multi-headed arrangements are one of the chief reasons why board pay over the past decade and a half has comprehensively outpaced share prices: at present the FTSE 100 index stands at 1998 levels.

Cable will publish his ideas this month. Be bold: force radical simplification of contracts and don't be distracted by smaller bonuses this year at the banks. The market has failed to fix the problem of excessive pay; government intervention is overdue.

Iran's threats may leave us all in a truly dire strait

One of the biggest games in the City now is betting on where the price of oil will go in 2012. Seldom has the market been so divided. The bears reckon Brent crude could dive as low as $50 a barrel if the eurozone blows, while bulls are punting on $150-plus if Iran carries out its threat to close the strait of Hormuz over the west's threat of oil sanctions.

The bulls' argument is strengthened by the fact that the political risks are far higher than this time last year when the oil price was 20% lower. Since mid-December, a barrel of crude has risen by 7% to close at $112 last week. On Friday, Macquarie Research raised its forecast for this year by about a fifth to an average price of $116.

The spotlight has been on Iran and the strait of Hormuz, through which a third of global seaborne oil must pass. The Americans and British have said they will react militarily if the Iranians move to block it. Who knows where that will lead but without doubt the price of oil would go through the roof, which could prompt the sort of recession in the west that followed Opec's oil embargo after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

It's not just problems linked to Iran that are pushing up the oil price. Plans by the Iraqis to lift oil output to about 3.5m barrels a day look as if they could be thrown off course by delays in building new infrastructure such as pumps and export terminals in the south of country. Worse, the Iraqi government could collapse amid growing dissension between Shia and Sunni ministers, plunging the country into chaos. Elsewhere, there is growing instability in oil-producing countries such as Nigeria and Russia.

An oil shock would be counter-productive for producers, because the resulting economic slump would see the price of Brent sink like a stone, as it did in 2008 when it fell from $147 to just under $34 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. So the big question now is whether history is about to repeat itself. It's anyone's guess.

High-speed rail is on track, but there's a wait for tickets

Tuesday will see the announcement of the final route for HS2, the high-speed rail link that will slice through Tory heartlands in the Chilterns to shave about half an hour off the journey to Birmingham. Business leaders and trade unions have mounted a concerted campaign in support of the proposals over the past few weeks, from differing perspectives. Businesses, especially those in the West Midlands, believe the faster link to London will boost their local economy by making the capital an easier commute. Unions are keen on the thousands of jobs that will be created during construction.

Some have questioned how much difference a faster route will make, arguing that since we're all glued to laptops and iPads on the train these days, travel time is no longer wasted.

But in general, upgrading the nation's infrastructure pays economic dividends. It's just a pity there won't be anything high speed about the project's construction – it's due to be finished in 2026.

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FTSE uncertain after Greek election, but Burberry boosted by hopes for luxury sector

Investors wary as eurozone woes continue but Deutsche Bank analysts positive about luxury sector

With the Greek election result failing to calm investors it was another volatile day on the markets, but despite the current austerity, luxury goods were in demand.

Burberry rose 38p to £13.46 following positive comments on the luxury goods sector from Deutsche Bank analysts. The bank said:

The luxury sector has never had it so good. Although there are some signs of a slowdown in growth, absolute levels of profitability are at all time highs for most brands, and sector return on capital employed has expanded by 11 percentage points since 2001.

It believed emerging market consumers offered potential growth opportunities for the next decade.

Elsewhere building materials group Wolseley added 57p to £22.33 after suggestions from analysts it could return up to £1.5bn to shareholders. Sam Cullen at Jefferies said:

On current forecast Wolseley will be near debt free by the end of 2012 and will have a significant cash balance by the end of 2013. Management has repeatedly stated the group will not hold excess cash on the balance sheet and, in the absence of a large scale step up in M&A, will return excess cash to shareholders. We theorise that Wolseley has the potential to return anything up to £1.5bn to shareholders by 2013, either as a lump sum or in instalments, creating up to 7% of additional shareholder value.

Meanwhile Citigroup said the company could spend up to £2bn on acquisitions or buybacks. Analyst Clyde Lewis said:

We can see the group spending around £2bn on acquisitions and capital returns in the next three years in addition to normal dividend payouts. Depending on the mix, this has the potential to boost 2015 earnings by around 20%-25%, taking our 2015 estimated earnings per share to 375p-390p.

Overall the FTSE 100 finished just 12.28 points higher at 5491.09, after hitting 5555, as the initial euphoria over the Greek election victory by the pro-bailout party was soon tempered by further fears about Spain and Italy. Spanish bond yields hit a record high in the life of the eurozone, while comments from German chancellor Angela Merkel that Greece had to stick to its bailout agreements also dented sentiment.

Banks were the leading fallers as the debt crisis continued. Royal Bank of Scotland fell 12.3p to 235.3p while Lloyds Banking Group lost 1.14p to 30.16p.

Elsewhere Glencore fell 12.05p to 328.4p and Xstrata closed down 31.8p at 859.2p, on continuing suggestions shareholders could vote against their proposed merger in protest against the level of executive payouts linked to the deal.

Struggling hedge fund group Man has lost its second key executive in a week with the sudden departure of its finance director.

The company, which also lost its place in the FTSE 100 index of leading shares following Friday's night's market close, said Kevin Hayes was leaving "to pursue other professional and personal interests." The departure follows last week's news that Darren Upton, head of research methodology who was involved in developing Man's key AHL fund, was leaving to join rival ISAM.

Hayes' replacement as finance director will be Jonathan Sorrell, Man's head of strategy and corporate finance and the son of WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell who has been in the news himself after a recent pay row.

The departures come as Man is trying to regain investor confidence after poor performances at AHL and its recent major acquisition GLG. Its shares ended 1.6p higher at 74.4p.

Cable & Wireless Worldwide added 2.74p to 37.77p as its shareholders backed the £1bn takeover by Vodafone, up 1.2p to 174.9p.

Buyout firm Melrose fell 11.9p to 370.6p after it confirmed weekend reports it was in talks about a possible $2.3bn cash purchase of German utility-meter maker Elster Group, in what would mark its first major deal in four years. Melrose said it would not proceed without a recommendation from the Elster board and its largest shareholder, CVC Capital Partners. It would fund a deal with new debt and a fully underwritten rights issue. Including $400m of debt, the total enterprise value for Elster would be $2.7bn. Analyst Harry Philips at Oriel Securities said he was slightly surprised at Melrose's target being European and quoted, and said there was a risk of other predators such as ABB or Siemens entering the fray. He said:

The attractions are Elster's market position as one of the industry's leading four players which have 60% of the market between them; the company's strong cash flow; and a substantial growth opportunity in upgrading the metering infrastructure in Europe.

As for funding he anticipated Melrose would issue around £735m of new shares in a 1 for 2 rights issue at around 350p each, with £965m of new debt:

If the deal is concluded, we would expect the disposal programme to be stepped up somewhat with [North American window products group] Truth at the top of the list.

Finally, Real Good Food rose 1.5p to 57p after the baking and sugar company strengthened its ties with Mauritian sugar producer Omnicane International. The company is issuing £2.4m worth of shares to Omnicare, which will take its stake from around 13% to 20%, with the proceeds being used to reduce Real Good Food's £25.9m debt. The two are also in talks about closer co-operation, with Real Good Food offering access to EU sugar markets and Omincare able to help develop export markets for some of the company's other products, especially in Africa.

Pieter Totte, Real Good Food's chairman, said:

I am very pleased with this innovative development, this is an exciting time for the business and we look forward to working with Omnicane on exploring mutually beneficial opportunities.

Phil Carroll at the company's broker Shore Capital said:

We believe today's announcement represents a very positive move, with the group's medium to long term progress in mind. Moreover, we expect the announcement that the repayment of debt has also been accelerated by the deal albeit with some equity dilution, should be taken well by investors as well as the fact the placing has been done at a premium, which, in our view, highlights the positive sentiment behind the deal's longer term prospects.


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Face to faith

Hope depends on Christ being released from the cul-de-sac of formal religion, Andrew Clitherow writes
  • The Guardian,
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At the end of a funeral service I had conducted for a young woman who had died in tragic circumstances, her mother came up to me and asked: "Was this God's will?" She was struggling with the idea that an omnipotent God decides what will or will not happen to us, the concept that leaving it to him is what having faith in God is all about.

It certainly wasn't God's will that the young woman had died, or that innumerable lives of very young children in Africa and around the world every day are cut short by disease. Nor can it be the will of God that human beings, now able to work creatively with the molecular building blocks of life itself, should not also reflect on the DNA of faith.

Religion was the earliest cultural tool used to promote genetic survival and tribal security. It provides human beings with ways to justify territorial gain at the expense of others (God told us this fertile land is ours - together with the oil beneath it - so you can get lost). It has also provided structures for child-rearing and social cohesion (God is male and the man is the head of the family, so the woman's place is for ever at home) and defines the social position of those who do not contribute to the gene pool in a reproductive way (gays and lesbians can guard the camp, but don't get any idea that you are as fit as the rest of us).

However, while religion often tells you to have faith in God first and then to know your place in his scheme of things, developing a faith in human nature today actually precedes having an authentic faith in God. Then as we unearth the divine potential in cosmic existence, we can take increasing responsibility for ourselves and the universe in a creative and loving way.

So we make way for the Spirit of love to confront evolutionary-driven human behaviour. Instead of grabbing what we want at the expense of others, we discover that our humanity is fulfilled as we learn how to share what we have. Rather than stereotyping others by the roles we give them, we allow them to find their own way. Instead of excluding others simply because they are different from ourselves, we embrace the diversity of human life.

Inauthentic religion, on the other hand, treats its followers like children and keeps them in an infantile relationship with God while inhibiting human development. It is a dangerous tool in the hands of those who have highly destructive weapons of technology at their fingertips. Utterly convinced they have God on their side, they might one day tear the world apart with a second big bang (de-creation by our own will rather than recreation by the will of God) that could lead to the end of us all.

With so much at stake, it is sad that the church still largely conforms to patterns of genetically driven behaviour, inherited and proudly preserved through its traditions. Until people of good faith - both within the church and beyond its precious boundaries - can release the Nazarene Christ from the present cul-de-sac of formal religion, there is little chance that the church can give the postmodern mind any real hope for the future. For Christ belongs not to the church but to the universe, although to listen to the establishment you would think it was the other way around.

I suspect that it is only when we stand at the graveside of our worldly desires and ambitions, and learn how to take responsibility for love's fortunes in a fallen world, that we will grow up into that fullness of life that Christ embodies for us all. And this is as true for the church as it is for anyone who prays for peace, for the sick and starving, or simply that they might be allowed to be themselves.

· Andrew Clitherow is a canon of Blackburn Cathedral, vicar of St Cuthbert's, Lytham, and the author of Creative Love in Tough Times

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General election 2010: Cif at the polls

Election 2010: Nick Clegg rides high

The overnight: Wooed by Gordon Brown at the leaders' debate, Nick Clegg's performance has dominated all reports since
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The man with the golden tie was riding high last night, although the Lib Dem website was playing it very low key. But with one poll from ITV/Comres suggesting that Clegg's performance could provide a massive boost in the poll ratings (which actually comes down from an astonishing 35% to a rather more plausible 24% when the sample is weighted for the actual electorate, rather than those who watched the debate) there is a definite whiff of panic hanging like volcanic ash in the Tory stratosphere.

David Cameron's handlers must have anticipated an easy win because the first Cameron event yesterday morning sounded like a bit of a dad-dancing moment, out and about with Gary Barlow of Take That, launching an idea for a school singing contest. Meanwhile Michael Gove, and others close to the Tory leader, are insisting that the Lib Dem bandwagon is being towed by nothing more than an elderly ox and any minute now Cameron's thoroughbred hunters will gallop past and force it into the ditch with a proper interrogation of what the Lib Dem policies really mean.

But there are auguries that will be giving the more nervous Tories in their Millbank headquarters the jitters. It is not only the (probably whacky) poll that is creating a febrile atmosphere (even though, as Tom Clark has pointed out, the Lib Dems have gone home to prepare for government before). Why, as Matt Chorley from the Western Morning News blogs, have two Lib Dem council candidates delayed their defection until Monday at the earliest? Surely not because they suddenly think they're more likely to hold on to their seats as Lib Dems?

One part of the debate that those of us who were too keen to see the analysis missed at the time was the very end. As Channel 4 News showed last night, it was Gordon who broke the rules and instead of waiting on the stage for the credits to roll stepped down for a bit of audience gladhanding. It was Nick Clegg who was pulled back from joining him by David Cameron, who was obediently following (I'm guessing) the stage manager's probably frantic gestures to stay put – before they both gave in and followed Brown into the crowd. That was a cool move by Brown, a good end to a much more feisty performance than many of us had anticipated (followed this morning by a generous acknowledgement of Clegg's success). Channel 4 News had a good fact check that caught out Cameron too, exposing his claim about the £73,000 Lexus newly acquired by Humberside police.

But then, for the real import of the debate – which, make no mistake, has absolutely dominated since – to be truly understood, we may have to wait until after 6 May. Brown's "I agree with Nick" strategy was a pretty blatant come-on from a wooer who has staying in power on his mind. And on the strength of his showing in the first debate, Clegg is likely to be able to demand a pretty high price.

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Facebook and the Big Society? No thanks

If the government thinks Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook can play a useful role in policymaking, it misunderstands digital culture
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Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently met the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, seems to think that Facebook will help to build David Cameron's Big Society: he tweeted yesterday that he had met Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, who "had good ideas on improvement [sic] digital culture in policy making". This makes the Big Society look an idea even more vacuous than it already appears; but on reflection the minister is right to ask whether social networks will be important in the politics of the future.

If they are, they won't be Facebook. Facebook is profoundly anti-democratic, and not just because it is a commercial operation. Facebook politics involve no real commitment any more than sending an email does. Nothing could more quickly tell you that a cause was stupid or irrelevant than the news that a Facebook group has been formed about it which already has 4,000 members, unless it is an announcement that it has 40,000.

In countries where politics are a matter of life and death, Facebook, like Twitter, is a great tool in the hands of the secret police. The thoughtful Russian commentator Evgeny Morozov has pointed out how much the Iranian authorities benefited from the American enthusiasm for "the Twitter revolution" last summer. Social networking in China is as closely monitored by the government as any other form of social activity, and just as little likely to lead to lasting change.

But in the democratic west the problems of political and social engagement are different. The difficulty here is to get people to commit time and effort to a cause. Some forms of religions are good at this, normally in a destructive mode. This doesn't require Twitter or Facebook, or whatever the fashionable technology may be: all it needs is the internet. "Social networking" is something people do, and they will adapt almost any channel for the purpose. All that you need is the ability to make circles of mutual friendship (and enmity) online. That has been going on since at least 1985 in various forms.

Without the social networking made possible by email, there might have been no Anglican schism and – to move to something that matters – there would almost certainly be far less spread of jihadi ideology. The point is that these beliefs don't just come as ideas, such as you might read in a book, but as conversations, which are far more effective means of changing hearts and minds. Even those books which change our minds provoke imaginary conversations with the author. Online the process is much easier.

This will happen with or without government encouragement. Governments may not like it when it does. If there was anything more to Jeremy Hunt's meeting Mark Zuckerberg than the usual desire of politicians to hang around the glamorous and fashionable and rich, it was an idea, perhaps, that social networking would tell the government what people want. But the Big Society, if it means anything real, is about people telling government what to do – something less agreeable to politicians – and using social networks to make their instructions coherent and forceful.

This won't be a revolution. It will be an increase in the power of middle-class pressure groups, some of them environmental, some religious, some, no doubt, based around schools and groups of parents. Like the Alpha course, they may appear to be about conversion and evangelism (whether theistic or otherwise) but they will in fact be about deepening and strengthening the beliefs of the already converted, and acting them out in a social drama.

These are all things which Conservatives are in theory committed to wanting. Edmund Burke's "little platoons" reappear online. The trouble is that the little platoons don't really take orders from anyone. This doesn't mean that anarchists should take heart either – the real model for a little platoon online in all its quirky and dysfunctional splendour is the home guard of Walmington-on-Sea.

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Universal credit: get ready for some rough justice

While the old benefits system offered a carrot to increase your hours of work, the new one will replace it with a stick if you don't
    • theguardian.com,
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Iain Duncan Smith
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has stated that the universal credit scheme will simplify the benefits system. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

With a year to go, there's a lot at stake for the government's radical universal credit plan. The new scheme will sweep away the main existing benefits, replacing them with one integrated system which, it's claimed, will be simpler and make working more financially worthwhile. Laudable aims. But will it work?

Many questions still hang over the new scheme, and inevitably some of the changes will be controversial. The difficulties of making families claim their entitlement online and the risks of paying benefits monthly to low-incomes families who often budget weekly, have been the focus of lots of debate recently. But the central aims of the policy – simplification and better work incentives – remain on course, right? Tuesday's report from Inclusion and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlights some concerns.

The government's labour market gurus think an extra 300,000 people will find jobs as a result. Universal credit will make it pay to work just a few hours per week, whereas the current system encourages people to work for 16 hours each week or not at all. But the new system will make work pay more for some families but less for others. The flip side of encouraging out-of-work parents to work a handful of hours each week is that working parents may also find it pays to work fewer hours and claim more universal credit. As the JRF report highlights, incentives to work for 16 hours per week, or full-time, will be reduced for some.

To prevent that from happening, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to introduce so-called "in-work conditionality" which will threaten some claimants with reductions in their universal credit payments if they don't extend their hours once in work. While the old system offered a financial carrot to increase your hours of work, the new one will replace it with a financial stick if you don't. In a labour market where around 1.4 million people are currently involuntarily under-employed, that's likely to entail some rough justice.

But the cold hard numbers are only part of the story when it comes to encouraging people back work. Part of work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith's case was that the byzantine complexity of the benefits system was also at fault, preventing claimants from understanding how much better-off they could be in work.

Here the DWP team behind universal credit are surely right in their diagnosis that you need a computer to understand how much you might get. But correctly identifying the problem isn't the same as finding a solution. And as the universal credit plans take shape, it seems that complexity in the new scheme is mounting.

For example, there will be a fiendishly complicated system of family specific "earnings disregards" – that's the amount you can earn before they start to take your benefits away. I don't recommend you try it at home, but if you really want to work out your own "disregard" you may need to brush up on your arithmetic first.

The simplification agenda has also been undermined by policy changes beyond DWP's control. Council tax benefit, for example, will be administered locally from April 2013 and most councils will have no choice but to cut it. As the JRF report notes, the consequence will be "a plethora of different local arrangements". So much for a simple system: not only will you need a computer to work out your benefit entitlement, you'll need a map too.

Whenever the benefit system is reformed there are likely to be objections. The trouble for universal credit is that some of its most trumpeted advantages are not quite what they seemed. In every area of detail the policy is bogged-down in the inevitable trade-offs of welfare policy: simplicity versus cost; carrots versus sticks; incentives to increase working hours or incentives to work at all? This was a policy designed before economic stagnation set in. But with the public finances under intense pressure, and no money to play with, those difficult trade-offs aren't getting any easier.

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X-Men 2

cert 12A

2 / 5

Ian McKellen in X-Men 2
Metal attraction... Ian McKellen as Magneto in X-Men 2

Director Bryan Singer is back with a cranked-up sequel to his meatily enjoyable X-Men of a couple of years ago: bigger, brasher, sexier but much, much more confusing.

  1. X-Men 2
  2. Production year: 2003
  3. Country: USA
  4. Cert (UK): 12A
  5. Runtime: 124 mins
  6. Directors: Bryan Singer
  7. Cast: Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart
  8. More on this film

Once again, the story is about the "mutants"; they are humanoids who find that they are the beneficiaries of an evolutionary great leap forward, though this mutation does not mean three legs or a harelip, but looking like a supermodel with cool magic powers. The X-Persons include Famke Janssen and Halle Berry, looking more beautiful than ever with a platinum blonde wig. There is also an uproariously camp new figure in the form of the mutant Kurt Wagner, much given to reciting the Lord's Prayer in German and English, played with Puckish cheek by Alan Cumming.

As in the first episode, there is no obvious opposition between good and bad, but rather a strange triangulation of opposing forces. Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) presides over a Hogwarts-style school for mutants - including one little boy with very familiar-looking spectacles and mop of hair. There is the more dangerous, nihilist Magneto (Ian McKellen) who breaks out of the Hannibal Lecter-type detention in which he was secured at the end of the last movie. There is a new character, the sinister anti-mutant General William Stryker (Brian Cox). The resulting three-way clash is very lively, with a tasty action sequence to kick off with inside the Oval Office.

But there is nothing to compare in daring and originality to that extraordinarily provocative Nazi concentration camp scene that opened the first movie. And it's all so entirely chaotic that the film gets - whisper it - a bit boring. The movie's combat setpieces could almost be shuffled and presented in any order without making any real difference to what might laughingly be considered the "story". Where do they mutate from here? The Y-Men? The Zzzzz-Men?

X-Men 2 is released on May 1.

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    BBC Sports Personality of the Year – in pictures

    Bradley Wiggins capped his remarkable sporting year by taking home the big prize at the ceremony in London
  • Martin Parr's M Video Christmas party photograph

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Edinburgh festival

Critic's notebook

Lyn Gardner on the Edinburgh fringe

'Why I'll never tire of the Edinburgh fringe'
His Ghostly Heart, Edinburgh fringe festival 2009
His Ghostly Heart, Edinburgh fringe festival 2009 - a vintage year

Today is one of my favourite days of the year, after my birthday and Christmas. It's the day that the Edinburgh fringe programme is published. I love that first peek at the brochure, its pages fat with promise and possibility. There's an initial quick scan to check out the big names and venues, followed by a more detailed forage for the shows and companies that look interesting.

There are plenty of other critics who are equally engaged by the programme, but still fewer and fewer of us – outside the Scottish press – who give Edinburgh the respect it deserves. The days when every London newspaper sent a huge team to Edinburgh are over: the split dates of the fringe and the international festival (the former starts at the beginning of August, the latter a week later), rising rents, tighter budgets and shorter editor attention spans have scuppered that – even as the web provides the space for unlimited coverage and for smart bloggers to pick up the slack. There is more to cover elsewhere, too: once, the critic who wasn't in Edinburgh during August was essentially unemployed. Now there are simultaneous openings all over the UK.

But Edinburgh remains a vital date in the calendar. The talent is there for those prepared to look beyond the big venues, the PR-hyped shows, and even the brochure; revitalising initiatives such as Forest Fringe now operate outside the official programme. One of the things I love about Edinburgh is that while some venues are clearly more equal than others, critically speaking, it's a level playing field. That brilliant show from an east London girls' school, or a Glasgow youth theatre, can be reviewed alongside the latest from a big-name playwright at the Traverse.

As a professional critic, Edinburgh keeps me on my toes: I know that otherwise the bloggers and simple word-of-mouth can easily outrun me. It's why the festival continues to spring surprises and create reputations. 2009 was a vintage year, with brilliant, groundbreaking work from unknowns such as Nic Green, Action Hero and Kristin Fredricksson, among others. Somewhere in the uncut pages of this year's shiny brochure, the future of theatre is lurking. I feel lucky that it's my job to look hard enough to find it.

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Blair should have the courage to end 11-plus

For most of the discussion with Will Woodward, Tony Blair made educational arguments for what he is doing (I will never axe grammar schools, says Blair, Education, Guardian 14). This stance was abandoned when he was asked about grammar schools - when he made political ones. He said he did not want a war. He seemed to be willing to take on the many more people concerned about embarking on the war on Iraq, why not those who support continuing to allow the selection of children at 11?

By focusing on the small number of schools he avoided the main issue - that of selection and its effect on children. Allowing selection to remain in the 36 English local authorities means he is turning a blind eye to its demotivating effect on the huge number of children in these areas rejected by selection at 11. The government is rightly concerned about the numbers still in education or training at 17, does he seriously think giving children a message of rejection at 11 is an encouragement to staying on at 16?

Selection at 11 is an unnecessary hurdle for children to face. Tony Blair should have the courage to face this political hurdle on their behalf.
Margaret Tulloch
Secretary, Comprehensive Future

Blair should not be allowed to shrug off the remaining grammars as an irrelevance. The whole of Kent and Medway's primary and secondary schooling turns on the axis of the grammars and the 11-plus. The price for the exclusivity of the grammars (serving the prosperous middle class) is paid by the children who attend the secondary modern schools, largely children of ordinary working people. The grammars create worse educational opportunities for those children. Kent and Medway regularly have the "worst" school in the league tables; 20% of Kent secondary schools are worse than the worst in Hackney. This is what "front-door" selection delivers.
Rebecca Matthews
Maidstone, Kent

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Three-quarters of UK butterfly species in decline

'Worrying' data from Butterfly Conservation shows more than half have seen their distribution decrease – including common species

Datablog: UK butterfly species' populations over a decade
  Guardian reader photos of butterflies
Duke of Burgundy butterfly
The Duke of Burgundy butterfly is in decline, data from Butterfly Conservation shows. Photograph: Peter Eeles/National Trust

Nearly three-quarters of butterfly species which breed in the UK have seen their numbers decline over a decade, according to the biggest ever survey of the colourful insects. The data published on Wednesday by Butterfly Conservation also shows more than half have seen their distribution decrease.

Richard Fox, lead author of the study by Butterfly Conservation and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said their results were "significant, worrying and depressing" because it included not just rare species but some of the most common household names like small tortoiseshell, the small heath and the wall.

"Butterflies are the 'canaries in the coalmine' for our environment and this new assessment shows they are in a poor state in 21st-century Britain," said Fox. "Despite grand promises by politicians, rare and common species of butterfly continue to decline in our countryside and towns as a result of farming, forestry and building practices that are hostile to our native wildlife."

He added: "It's also depressing: we have just gone through a decade which has had the highest levels of public awareness about wildlife and conservation and effort and public money gone into the landscape for wildlife: in that context it's pretty bad news."

The high brown fritillary has seen numbers fall by more than two thirds (69%) in the past 10 years, while duke of burgundy populations have declined by 46%. Both species have seen their distributions reduced.

The common garden species the small tortoiseshell has also seen major declines in numbers of almost two thirds (64%) in the past decade.

Meanwhile, the peacock, comma, speckled wood and ringlet butterflies have continued to spread north rapidly in response to climate change, Butterfly Conservation said.

The survey did show, however, dramatic recoveries in a few rare species, including the large blue – reintroduced in the 1980s after becoming extinct in this country – which is now expanding its population and range, and the heath fritillary, which has been brought back from the brink of extinction.

The reason for the disparity was likely to be that recovery programmes for individual butterfly species were intense and very focused, sometimes on as few as two locations, whereas most general environmental improvements schemes were much broader and less targeted. In particular, the entry level scheme funded by EU farming subsidies was too open to farmers to decide what improvements to make, without necessarily good evidence they were the most beneficial changes, said Fox.

Although results of the latest survey cannot be directly compared with historic records, "there is no sign there has been declines of these kind of magnitudes before the 1950s – it really ties in with agricultural intensification," said Fox.

The research, which analysed the distribution and numbers of 59 species of butterflies which regularly breed in the UK, found some species, such as the high brown fritillary and the duke of burgundy butterflies, have seen declines which have put them at risk of becoming extinct in the UK. A 10-year population trend was calculated from data collected by thousands of members of the public between 1995 and 2009.

Butterflies are considered a key way to track the fabric of biodiversity which supports life on Earth. Records of how widely different butterfly species are dispersed go back to the 1600s – making them probably the longest running indicator of the variety of life on the planet.

The butterfly survey follows reports last week that a 40-year record of 19 different UK species of farmland birds – another key indicator of biodiversity – reached a record low last year and overall numbers have fallen by more than half in those four decades.

The declines follow drastic cuts in spending by the environment department, Defra, and the prospect that regulations to protect wildlife are to be reviewed and watered-down after the Chancellor, George Osborne, suggested that "gold-plating" of such protections was holding back economic development in his autumn statement.

Dr Martin Warren, Butterfly Conservation's chief executive, said: "We now have firm evidence that targeted effort can reverse the decline of threatened butterflies, so it is especially sad that these hard-fought gains have been put in jeopardy due to government cutbacks in funding. Wildlife recovery needs more not less funding if we are to halt the loss of biodiversity and create a healthy environment for us all to live in."


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Plane Stupid demo at Manchester airport increased emissions, court hears

Climate protesters chained round nosewheel delayed Monarch Airlines flight for 30 minutes, burning £1,500 extra fuel
Manchester airport
Plane Stupid activists delayed a plane at Manchester airport, above. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Six climate change protesters who cut through the fence at Manchester airport and surrounded an aircraft in protest at emissions actually led to an increase in pollution, a court has heard.

The activists from Plane Stupid chained their arms together, encircling the nose wheel of the Monarch Airlines plane bound for Egypt in May last year, Trafford magistrates court was told. All six deny aggravated trespass.

Nicky Moore, for the prosecution, asked defendant Robin Gillett, 24, if he was aware that the protest led to an increase in emissions because the airport was closed and six aircraft diverted elsewhere.

Gillett acknowledged that emissions increased but said that had not been the intention of the action. He had felt "fobbed off" after trying to meet a city councillor to discuss emissions from the airport, which is 55% owned by the local authority.

"By stopping the aircraft taking off we were hoping to prevent the release of emissions and greenhouse gases," Gillett told the court. "It was a peaceful protest about climate change."

The protesters claim they acted to prevent death and serious injury caused through climate change by stopping emissions from Manchester airport. Barney Francis, 27, Jess Bradley, 21, David Cullen, 31, Iain Hilton, 31, Edward Watson, 21, and Gillett, all of Manchester, wore orange high-visibility tabards with "Our climate, not your business" written on them.

Moore said the six breached the perimeter fence on 24 May last year and approached the plane which was waiting to take 252 passengers and crew to Egypt. Five surrounded the nosewheel and chained their arms together while a sixth chained himself to the group so he could move freely and provide food and drink.

The airport had to be closed to aircraft for 30 minutes, he said. The delay led to an additional £1,500 fuel bill and £196.88 in crew costs for Monarch as the plane attempted to make up lost time.

The court heard that Gillett had previous convictions for obstructing a train bound for Drax power station, for trespassing at East Midlands airport, and for a breach of the peace during the 2005 G8 summit in Edinburgh.

Police sergeant Natalino Practico said he saw five youths chained around the aircraft. As he approached, he realised they were not terrorists, "just climate protesters".

"I asked for their names and they all decided to call themselves George," he told the court. He asked how long they were going to be there. They told him they wanted to speak to a representative from the airport, but this was refused as being too dangerous.

Practico said considerable resources had been used – a helicopter checked the airport fence and a tactical aid unit was diverted from another operation.

District judge Jonathan Taafe asked Gillett why, if he believed so fervently climate change, he had replied "no comment" to every police question. "It was the legal advice I was given at the time," he said.

The trial continues.


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George Monbiot blog banner

Caroline Lucas lifts jinx for Green party with breakthrough victory in Brighton

Green MP is welcome addition to British politics and reflects the transformation of the party

Analysis: What next for Caroline Lucas and the Greens?
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So the Green jinx has at last been lifted. Caroline Lucas has been elected MP for Brighton Pavilion.

It's not quite true to say that she is the UK's first Green MP. From 1992-2000 the party shared the MP for Ceredigion, Cynog Dafis, with Plaid Cymru. But she's the first one in England and the first to represent only the Greens. It's a massive breakthrough, not only because she's a brilliant, charismatic, humane politican who will enrich parliamentary life, but also because it proves it can be done, even under our antiquated political system.

If the Greens, despite all the odds, can take a seat in a first-past-the-post election, think of what they'll be able to do if, as now seems possible, we get proportional representation. Think how much more might be achieved if we also get a fair party funding system, which doesn't leave the small parties scrambling for pennies while billionaires slip cheques into the pockets of the big players.

Her victory reflects the transformation of the Greens from a chaotic, divided, messy party into a much tighter and more effective operation, which has been able to target its limited resources on winnable seats and tone down the identity politics which sometimes suggested that the party's main purpose was self-expression. Now, as it has already demonstrated in local and European elections, it knows how to win. Yet there has been no loss of radicalism: its manifesto told uncomfortable truths – about economic growth and consumption for example – that the other parties dare not admit.

Lucas, as she has shown in Brussels, where she has served as an MEP, won't disappear at Westminster. Although she has no parliamentary machine to support her, hers is not a voice that will be easily hushed. She won't let the major parties forget that their economic plans are founded on a series of impossibilities, and she won't allow the environment to be shoved out of sight.

Beyond that, there's not a great deal she can do by herself, though in a hung parliament she can join some useful coalitions, and her voice will be amplified by the three Plaid Cymru MPs, whose politics and outlook are very similar. But the message her election sends contributes to the sense that the old politics is on the way out: parliament in future could be a much more plural, responsive, interesting place than it is today.

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