Chancellor announces £1.5m fund for Britain's elite chess players

Rishi Sunak established a £500,000 fund to support Britain's elite chess players when he was prime minister. The new Labour government scrapped it.

But now Rachel Reeves – a former  British under-14 girls champion herself – has announced that a larger sum is earmarked for the same purpose.

Leonard Barden, in his Guardian column, quotes her as saying:

“We are allocating £1.5m to help identify, support and elevate top tier players who have the potential to compete at a global level.”

And he explains:

The new support, announced along with a £500m grant for youth service projects, is more precisely targeted to the best talents, and will act as a spur to players like England’s youngest grandmaster, Shreyas Royal, 16, and England’s youngest Olympiad player, Bodhana Sivanandan, 10, both of whom met the chancellor a few weeks ago at 11 Downing Street. 

Currently the best prospect relative to age is Supratit Banerjee, 11, who played on top board for the Surrey team which retained the inter-counties championship this month and made a creditable draw with England’s No 2, David Howell, in a clock simultaneous match last week. The Scot, Frederick Gordon, 15, has also impressed. 

Barden goes on to cite similar schemes that proved successful in England, the US and the old Soviet Union.

One feature of Rishi Sunak's package for chess isn't being revived: the money he gave for chess tables in parks.

It was always hard to see why this was a matter for central government, but the plan – like the teaching of Latin in state schools – was attacked out of both snobbery and inverse snobbery.

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“The government is about to publish a White Paper on Election Regulation, in preparation for the Elections Bill it will bring forward in the next parliamentary session.  Both have major implications for British democracy; both take us away from a Liberal approach." William Wallace on Liberal localism and Labour centralism.”

Phoebe Weston reports from the biodiversity desert that is Dartmoor today: “We have become so used to these landscapes,” says author and campaigner Guy Shrubsole, who advocates for Right to Roam on Dartmoor. “Good geology hides a lot of problems. We’re admiring rocks and not what should be a living ecosystem.”

“Nigel Farage spent a decade thundering about the virtues of British parliamentary democracy – the sanctity of ‘taking back control’, of laws made by “our” elected representatives in ‘our’ sovereign chamber. But now that he’s finally secured a seat in the House of Commons, he’s treating it with contempt.” Sam Bright says Farage’s disappearing act is a portent of things to come.

“Levellers had been briefly consulted on a new constitution, but the discussions were quietly forgotten once the business of deposing and killing the king was done. Their last significant challenge to the new regime was a sadly quixotic mutiny, defeated by the army leadership at Burford, making the honey-coloured Cotswold town an unlikely site of pilgrimage for later radicals.” Jonathan Healey reviews two books on England under the Commonwealth.

Off the Records listens to Hot Chocolate's UFO-themed hit No Doubt About It, which made number 2 in the UK singles chart in 1980, and explains why its subject matter was so topical.

A London Inheritance takes us to Highgate Archway, where a collapsed tunnel was replaced by a bridge.

Satire: "I’m trying to beat you all up and beat myself up too"

"Have you seen that piece on satire by Colin Burrow in the London Review of Books?" asked Lord Bonkers over lunch. "It's Terribly Good."

It turned out to be a review by Burrow of State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature by Dan Sperrin:

The disappointment​ with satire that emerges from this book is in part a product of its method. The alluringly simple-seeming question ‘What is this text trying to do?’ is a much less good one to ask of satire than it might sound. It immediately excludes the possibility that a satirist might be a confused mess of self-censorship mixed with odd lunges for freedom, in which a desire to make a mark on the world as an individual intersects riskily with a desire to make people change their behaviour. 

The question ‘What is this satire trying to do?’ also implies that authorial intentions are clear, and that so long as you know enough about the day-to-day politics of the Walpole administration you can pin those intentions down and label them like dead butterflies in a display case. Many of the most successful satirists – Evelyn Waugh, even dry old Orwell – had a streak of madness and self-contradiction within them which might lead them to answer the question ‘What are you trying to do?’ with something like ‘I’m trying to beat you all up and beat myself up too.’ 

Furthermore, asking the same question of satire that one might ask of a political pamphlet aimed at redressing an immediate political wrong radically restricts the parameters within which satire can operate. It makes satire a mode that addresses a particular moment rather than a mode which might have an afterlife, or even change how people see the world in the longer term. You might say that’s not just a recipe for disappointment with satire, but for missing the point.

Part 1 of Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army will be aired on 27 July

The first part of the BBC's two-part documentary on the Jesus Army, the abusive cult that grew out of the Northamptonshire village of Bugbrooke, will be broadcast on Sunday 27 July. It goes out on BBC2 at 9pm, and its full title is Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army.

On the BBC website it's billed as follows:

A look at the origins of the Jesus Fellowship. Founded in the 1970s, its early vision of communal living, shared finances and spiritual commitment changes over time, becoming more structured and controlling. Unexplained deaths begin to occur within the community, exorcisms are performed on members with "unclean spirits", and children as young as two are disciplined with birch canes in a practice known as "rodding".

Then, in 1987, leader Noel Stanton announces the launch of a "Jesus Army". Members go onto the streets to evangelise, often amongst the homeless or people with addiction issues, and often bring new recruits back into community homes. One of these homes is in London, and it is here that a young girl becomes a witness to something that will change her life forever.

I blogged about the plans for this documentary when it was first announced. Given the scale of the abuse it perpetrated, I'm surprised the Jesus Army has not been more of a news story.

Part 2 will be screened at the same time on Sunday 3 August.

Stamford Chidge is the son of the late Lib Dem MP David Chidgey

I've had to inform this blog's trivia desk of a discovery I've made while listening to my favourite Chelsea podcast.

Chelsea Fancast is presented by Stamford Chidge, whose real name is David Chidgey. And the discovery I made from the new edition of the podcast is that he's the son of the late David Chidgey who was Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh between 1994 and 2005, and then a member of the House of Lords.

The elder David Chidgey was also, at least according to Lord Bonkers, the intrepid pilot of the Bird of Liberty, a spacecraft the Lib Dems owned in the 1990s.

Chelsea Fancast has previously come to the attention of our trivia desk: see my post on the Kenneth More television series An Englishman's Castle.

Inside the secret world of Eel Pie Island

An entertaining video on the long and bohemian history of Eel Pie Island, which is to be found in the Thames between Twickenham and Ham.

Henry VIII, Charles Dickens, The Rolling Stones and Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio, all feature.

h/t Richard James on Bluesky.

Ed Davey's big day: Cheaper energy bills and challenging the BBC over Nigel Farage

This was Ed Davey on BBC Breakfast this morning. His determination to attack Nigel Farage at every turn, and hang his admiration for Vladimir Putin around his neck in particular, is clear.

Given that no one other party is prepared to have a go at Farage – the Conservatives agree with him, Labour is afraid its voters do – Ed is both performing a public service and exploiting a huge opportunity for the Liberal Democrats.

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Sam Bright looks at new research that suggests effective attack lines to use against Reform UK: "Farage’s shtick is to pose as a champion of the working man, fighting against out-of-touch elites and corrupt institutions. But this new research shows the importance of exposing Farage’s foundational myth: namely, that Reform isn’t a grassroots rebellion; it’s a vehicle bankrolled by the financiers who crashed the economy in 2008 and the austerity-obsessed corporate vandals who have profited ever since."

Like it or not, Britain's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights is going to be an issue at the next general election, and we're going to need better arguments than we were able to come up with during the European Union referendum. Here, George Peretz makes a social democrat case for Britain's continued membership of the ECHR.

Dan Friedman counsels Democrats against getting entangled in conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein as there are more than enough real Trump scandals to expose.

Michaela James and Mayara Silveira Bianchim find that it's not so much activity as feeling confident and in control when they’re active that boosts children’s wellbeing: "autonomy, confidence and competence – were stronger predictors of wellbeing than more traditional measures like deprivation (normally we’d expect deprivation to positively or negatively affect wellbeing) or even total time spent being active."

"Nowadays, it’s hard to believe that Durrell was once ranked among the best prose stylists of the postwar period. Such is the fickle nature of literary legacies that the main charge made against his writing – its luscious language and bewildering structure – was originally considered its unique achievement." Guy Stagg on the decline of Lawrence Durrell's literary reputation.

"I contend that The Rising of the Moon is Gladys Mitchell's greatest stylistic achievement: she sets out to create a world filtered through the eyes of her thirteen-year old narrator, Simon Innes, and to that end she succeeds on every page. It's not just a perspective, it's an entire ideology that Miss Mitchell offers in her young protagonist. Simon and Keith have scruples; they are cunning and resourceful, in the best meaning of those words; they have their own particular code of honor. They also have a thorough understanding of how their world operates (parental laws; omissions which are not the same as lies), and Simon's subdued narrative prose bolsters this point." The Stone House celebrates an extraordinary book.

After the rail accident: Godmersham and Crundale Village Hall

It's almost 10 years since I was given a late-night cup of tea in this imposing village hall. It's Godmersham and Crundale Village Hall, and if you go to the gallery on its website you will see what an impressive space it is.

I was there because my train had been derailed - I may have blogged about it once or twice at the time.

Looking for media reports about the accident today, I found one on Kent Online I had not seen before:

Residents and Southeastern employees have been commended for their actions after a train derailed near the village earlier this year. 

The awards have been handed out following an incident in July that saw a late-night train hit a herd of cows that had wandered onto the track near Chilham. 

None of the 70 passengers on-board were hurt but they were taken to nearby Godmersham village hall afterwards while alternative transport was arranged. 

Now Godmersham villagers together with Southeastern employees working on the night, have been given a special executive award for their actions in the aftermath of the collision, that included offering shelter for shocked passengers in the village hall and providing refreshments for those affected. ...

Matthew Gee, the resident responsible for unlocking the village hall for the passengers, said: “When we heard the train had derailed nearby, we immediately wanted to help in whatever way we could.

“It was a real team effort between the Southeastern team and the members of the village hall and I’m really proud of the local residents who helped provide hot drinks and food for the passengers.”

The award also recognises the quick-thinking and conscientious efforts of Southeastern employees Warren Wills, Tim Hewitt, Michelle Harris, and Paul Harris who led the passengers to safety and train driver Daryl Ryan who leapt from his cab to halt an approaching train after realising the derailment had caused his own train’s radio system to stop working.

To get to the village hall, we had to climb down from the train, walk across a field and then wait in a lane for transport to arrive.

I travelled in a police van - in fact in the narrow compartment where they put people they've arrested - with Daryl Ryan, and he told me he thought the train was going down the embankment after it hit the cows.

Reading the official report on the accident, I am reminded how lucky we were that this wasn't a more serious incident:

The RAIB’s [Rail Accident Investigation Branch] analysis of the derailment path suggests that the consequences were mitigated by two external factors. The first was the impact with Trimworth Bridge, which deflected the train back towards the railway. Secondly, the path of the leading carriage was constrained by the right-hand wheels running against the inside face of the left-hand rail. These factors reduced the probability of the train falling further down the embankment.

I needed another cup of tea after reading that.

Reform council leader pleads for government to soften new visa regime for care workers - Welcome to the real world

The Reform UK leader of Kent County Council has written to the home secretary expressing "grave concerns" about government proposals to reduce health and social care visas. 

In the letter, which was also signed by the council's cabinet member for social care Diane Morton, she said:

“Across the contracts for the council’s adult social care and health services there are approximately 150 providers we are aware of who have sponsorship licences which is equal to 20-25% of our social care workforce being from overseas. 

“There are a number of displaced social care workers who may have lost their jobs, or the sponsoring provider has lost their licence. 

“Kent Integrated Care Alliance has advised us that the Government has ringfenced £2m for the south east so providers could pick up these displaced people and get them into work. 

“They would receive £5,000 each, however in three years’ time or when the visa expires, they are currently expected to pay the care worker £41,000 a year. This is £10,000 more than a band five nurse in the NHS.”

It would be easy to laugh or call her a hypocrite, but let's welcome a Reform politician being prepared to recognise reality. Too many of them believe that outside consultants or their own parties DOGE are coming to save them. They're not.

Kent Online quotes the Liberal Democrat group leader on the council supporting her letter:

“KCC has rightly acknowledged the importance of overseas workers to the care sector. 

“Under the plans in the government’s immigration white paper, care providers will be able to apply until 2028 to extend their workers’ visas, but will have to pay the Home Office’s Immigration Skills Charge, which the Government is raising to £1,320 for each worker per year of their visa.

“Imposing crippling Home Office fees on top of the Government’s misguided jobs tax (the national insurance increase) will just make the crisis even worse, pushing many care homes to the brink and leaving our loved ones in the lurch.

“People who have moved to the UK to look after our elderly and disabled people are doing tough jobs and helping to keep our NHS on its feet. They should be thanked for their contribution, not demonised.”

I foresee a split opening in Reform between the leadership, which will go on talking bollocks and making impossible promises, and those of their councillors who are trying to do the job conscientiously.

Former sheriff candidate to face trial for allegedly registering cats to vote

KTLA, a Los Angeles television station, wins Headline of the Day:

A man who ran for Ventura County sheriff will stand trial for allegedly trying to register four cats to vote.

Bruce Boyer, a Chatsworth resident, is accused of trying to register four cats to vote ahead of the 2024 election. He pleaded not guilty to those charges earlier this year.

As detailed by the Ventura County Star, Boyer allegedly tried to enroll Cool T. Cat, Estrea D. Tigre, Fritz T. Cat and Sylvester T. Cat as voters.

My own view is that cats are certainly intelligent enough to vote, but because they're anarchists I wouldn't trust them to turn out on the day.

"Let’s get him out before he poisons all the fishes": Robert Jenrick in the River Teme at Leintwardine

What the hell is Robert Jenrick doing in the River Teme at Leintwardine?

Readers of this blog will remember that Malcolm Saville's 11th Lone Pine Club adventure, The Secret of the Gorge, opens in this Herefordshire village, though most of the action takes place a couple of miles downstream in the Downton Gorge.

Seeing this photo of Jenrick, I was reminded in particular of this encounter with the villainous Simon Blandish in chapter 7: 

Macbeth advanced and so did the Lone Piners, for they already sensed what was going to happen. Macbeth made another little sortie and again Blandish swore and kicked out at him. He missed and retreated another step. Macbeth, with wildly wagging tail, pranced proudly forward and the man fell backwards into the river. If the water, at that spot, had not been about two feet deep he might have helped hurt himself for he was a heavy man and the bank was quite high where the water, swirling under the narrow bridge. had worn it away. As it was the water broke his fall but the splash she made was prodigious

They stood on the bank and watched him wallowing like a clumsy hippopotamus, blowing river water from his mouth. He staggered to his feet, lost his balance on a slippery rock and fell in again.

“Why was he doing that to you, Dickie?” David asked quietly. “Were you being cheeky?”

“Yes. I was a bit. Mary was down on the bank and I was watching her from the bridge when Old Pudding Face came up quietly on his bike and grabbed at me and told me to clear out. Then he pulled me down here and twisted my arm and asked me all sorts of questions about us an’ then –”

“An’ then I did the danger call,” his twin went on. “And I shouted for help ... Oh, look! He's fallen in again! Let’s get him out before he poisons all the fishes.”

The Rolling Stones: Paint It, Black

This was the first UK number 1 to feature a sitar (played by Brian Jones) and an influence on the emerging genre of psychedelic rock. And I've always loved it.

Hilaire Belloc's persecution of Charles Masterman

I knew Charles Masterman had won the enmity of Horatio Bottomley, the publisher of John Bull magazine, over the Home Office inquiry into alleged abuse at the Akbar Nautical Training School at Heswall on the Wirrall.

The report of the inquiry, which Masterman led, failed to accept many of the allegations published in John Bull, with the result that Bottomley regarded it as a whitewash and used the magazine to attack Masterman ever afterwards. 

As Bottomley spent some of his childhood in a Birmingham orphanage, I suspect he might have had a better knowledge of the abuses that can take place in residential institutions than the average Home Office official.

What I didn't appreciate until recently was that Masterman was also a target of the far-right antisemites Hilaire Belloc and Cecil Chesterton, brother of the better known G.K.

Here's Peter Howarth reviewing Richard Ingrams' book The Sins of G.K. Chesterton for the London Review of Books – the “volcano” is Belloc:

The volcano’s first eruption was The Party System, an exposé co-written with Cecil, which claimed that, despite the opposition to Lloyd George’s introduction of National Insurance, the Tories and Liberals were a political cartel. 

Cecil and Belloc took particular exception to the Liberal politician and journalist Charles Masterman, an old friend of the Chesterton family, and characterised his marriage to Lucy Lyttleton (the Liberal-voting daughter of the Tory chief of the general staff and a childhood friend of Frances Chesterton) as the act of an insecure and unsuccessful journalist inserting himself into “the little governing group which has the salaries and places in its gift”. 

They issued scurrilous leaflets during the 1911 Bethnal Green by-election, which Masterman narrowly won, and joined the Daily Express in smearing him again in 1914, when he lost two by-elections (one after being appointed to the cabinet). The New Witness crowed that Masterman, as the lackey of “Lloyd George ... the Jews and their hangers-on’, should have been ‘excluded not merely from Parliament but from the society of decent honourable men”.

If Belloc was motivated by rancour at a more successful MP than he had been, Ingrams argues, the only explanation for Cecil’s venom can have been to force his brother to declare his allegiance to the attackers, not the Mastermans or his own wife. When H.G. Wells wrote to the New Witness to protest against the vendetta, Cecil replied: “I think it very probable that my brother and I should disagree to a considerable extent ... on Masterman’s character and motives.”

But G.K. could not defend Masterman in public without calling Cecil’s motives into question. “By allying himself to Belloc, and insulting Masterman in the most vicious attacks imaginable,” Ingrams writes, “Cecil could force his brother to change sides.” 

He succeeded. Chesterton had dedicated a book to Masterman less than two years earlier, and Frances and Lucy had loved to go to parties together; the friendship disintegrated when he wrote to Masterman that he could not defend him in public, since he believed “the new and mutinous camp” formed by his brother and Belloc were right.

There's a tendency to treat G.K. Chesterton as a sort of holy innocent, but I find him a perfectly worldly writer when he wants to be. So it's hard not to think less of him after reading this.

Ed Davey calls for Mark Carney to pay official visit before Trump

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Ed Davey has called for Mark Carney to be invited to pay an official visit just before President Trump and for him to be invited to address parliament too, reports The London Economic.

Trump will be here on a state visit from 17 to 19 September, while parliament is in recess.

In a statement quoted by the digital newspaper, the Liberal Democrat leader said:

“The Prime Minister should invite Mark Carney for an official visit to the UK just ahead of Trump’s visit, including the opportunity to address Parliament. This would send an important signal that Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with Canada against Trump’s chaotic trade war.

“With Trump threatening our Commonwealth partners like Canada with yet more tariffs while hitting the UK steel industry, now is the time stand firm with our allies.”

“Nigel Farage may want to abandon our Commonwealth allies and cosy up to his idol Trump, it just shows yet again he is a false patriot who cares more about promoting Trump at home than standing up for the UK abroad.”

If Mark Carney got to address parliament and he didn't, Trump would be intensely annoyed. This, of course, is a point in favour of the idea. Elbows up, everybody.

Tortoise rescued after starting fire in south London flat

An inadvertent nomination from a reader sees the Independent win our Headline of the Day Award:

Pictures from the aftermath of the scene show crew members smiling and posing with the pets, with the flat understood to be only lightly damaged by the fire.

A spokesperson for London Fire Brigade said: “A mischievous tortoise and his canine friend were rescued last week from a fire on London Road in Mitcham.”

“The fire was caused by the naughty tortoise knocking over his heat lamp which fell onto the hay, a combustible material, in his aquarium.”

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Ben de Pear and Ramita Navai tells the story of how the BBC repeatedly delayed and ultimately shelved a damning documentary on the destruction of Gaza's health service. Gaza: Under Attack was eventually screened by Channel 4.

“Resilience is critical to manage global heating: housing, food defences, water supplies, food supply, healthcare, finance and workplaces. Too often we are fighting last centuries’ wars by insulating homes from cold and failing to protect them from heat; hence, we install air to water heat pumps, where other countries are promoting air to air (which provides cooling in summer).” Simon Ferrigno asks if Britain is prepared for more heatwaves.

“The data doesn’t suggest that total demand on the criminal courts is unprecedentedly high. The number of cases coming into the system has increased in recent years, but remains below levels in the early 2010s. Indeed, the total amount of court time spent on jury trials has decreased by almost a quarter since 2016. The biggest problem facing the courts is the growing productivity gap – what we’re getting out compared to what we’re putting in.” Cassia Rowland is not convinced by Sir Brian Leveson's recommendation that we severely restrict the right to a tribal by jury.

Jacqui chooses 10 favourite London novels.

Susan McDonald discusses her love of the poetry of W.H. Auden: “In Tonight at Seven-Thirty, Auden says ‘the funniest mortals and the kindest are those who are most aware of the baffle of being’. I agree – that’s why I’ve read his poems for the past 30 years.”

“If horror film makers have nothing else they can always rely on a cheap mask to bring a sense of the uncanny, playing upon our deepest instinctive fear of The Other.” Ray Newman on the power of the mask.

Josh Babarinde is interviewed by Nick Robinson

Last week Josh Babarinde was interviewed by Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking series. The blurb for this edition runs:

The Lib Dem Justice Spokesperson managed to persuade ministers to change domestic abuse law within a year of being elected to parliament.

Josh Babarinde tells Nick how his own childhood experience spurred him on to push for reform.

He also explains how a beer mat persuaded him to join the Liberal Democrats.

You can listen to the interview on the BBC website.

At one point Robinson asks Josh why the Liberal Democrats don't have as much impact on the news as Reform UK does. This betrays such a lack of self-awareness on Robinson's part that you can probably see it from space.

It's no wonder that Max Wilkinson, the Lib Dem spokesperson on Culture, Media and Sport, has written to Ofsted to complain about the "undue prominence" the BBC gives Reform UK.

The Poachers: The Coast

A good song for a summer Sunday.

The Poachers are a Glasgow band, and I don't know much about them beyond what we are told in this Instagram post.

The songwriting duo of Neil Donaldson and Seb Jonsen primarily started The Poachers as a studio based project, working with producer Marco Rea and releasing 3 EPs of bona fide country folk pop classics in 2020 and 2021. 

With no way of promoting these works in the traditional sense due to the lockdown, they took a hiatus for much of 2022 before emerging rejuvenated in 2023 with support from independent label Sunstone Records as well as the addition of Toby Virgo on bass and Dave Johnston on drums. 

Now a fully fledged live band, they released the singles 'Annabelle' and 'The Coast' with a sold out show at the Glad Cafe in May to much acclaim and radio plays including BBC Scotland and Amazing Radio.

Risotto rice under threat from flamingoes in north-eastern Italy

Despite the judges raising a collective eyebrow at the newspaper's choice of plural for "flamingo", our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Guardian.

Later. The judges are not without influence.