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America’s Danny DeVito and Britain’s Richard Griffiths join forces in this joyous revival of Neil Simon’s 1972 comedy about a pair of superannuated vaudevillians. But what makes the play profoundly touching as well as funny is Simon’s understanding of the obduracy, childishness and professional neglect that are often inseparable from old age.

The play has echoes of Simon’s greatest hit, The Odd Couple. This play is also about two men in a quasi-marital relationship. For 43 years Willie Clark and Al Lewis were a headline double-act but, after a decade in non-speaking retirement, they are to be reunited for a CBS comedy special. But Willie is a cantankerous old cuss who loathes his ex-partner because of his decision to quit the business. Al, meanwhile, is a gentler soul who lives with his daughterin New Jersey and wonders why he should go through an old routine with the waspishly vindictive Willie.

Because of his early training in Sid Caesar TV comedy, Simon is often thought of as a gag writer, but what makes him so funny is that his jokes spring from character. At one point Willie’s agent-nephew, who pays a weekly visit to his truculent uncle in his hotel room, complains: “I always get chest pains on Wednesdays.” Willie’s dry response of “Then come on Tuesdays” captures the veteran comic’s determination to have the last word. But, while Simon gets an extraordinary number of laughs out of the confrontation of the bickering comics, he also makes it clear old age is no joke. Willie and Al may be vaudeville characters; but, in their arguments and their mix of dependence and open hostility, they resemble many old couples fighting off the fear of mortality.

Thea Sharrock’s production treats the play as a character study rather than a mechanical gag-fest and yields two glowing performances. DeVito’s Willie is an extraordinary mix of the hard-nosed old pro, who explains why words with a “k” are funny, and the malevolent loner. For such a small man, DeVito exudes a disproportionate rage, but he makes you feel Willie’s volcanic anger stems from his yearning to work. Griffiths, as his former partner, is mellower but displays a silvery determination when it comes to the precise placement of a chair and has the look of a wounded man. By the end you begin to understand why Willie says of Al, “As an actor no-one could touch him, as a human being no-one wanted to touch him.” Adam Levy as Willie’s peace-making nephew is a desperate man caught between an irresistible force and an immoveable object. The end result is a richly resonant comedy that reminds us that, while Simon may be pure, he is rarely simple.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/may/17/sunshine-boys-review

Dozens of Scottish arts companies and art centres are facing deep funding cuts and job losses under a radical restructuring of spending by the national arts agency Creative Scotland.

The agency’s new funding strategy puts far greater emphasis on theatre groups, art centres, galleries and festivals competing against each other for subsidies for one-off projects from next April to help it cope with a £2.1m cut in its funding from the Scottish government.

Creative Scotland insists the new system will produce much sharper and more creative art, and greater collaboration between companies, but critics within the arts community believe it raises doubts about the long-term survival and strength of many organisations losing core funding.

They fear the uncertainty and instability of relying in future on short-term funding will lead to a drain of talent from Scotland and harm their ability to attract new talented directors and curators.

Creative Scotland said overall arts spending in Scotland was being far better protected than in England, where the Arts Council has seen swingeing funding cuts.

One of the UK’s largest annual poetry festivals, the StAnza festival based in St Andrews, the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, a city now famous for its three Turner Prize winners, and the Stills contemporary photography gallery in Edinburgh are among the 49 organisations being put on short-term project funding.

Deirdre MacKenna, the director at Stills, which had got up to 60% of its funding from Creative Scotland, said: “We’ve no idea what the impact will be because we don’t understand what it is Creative Scotland has in mind for us. [It's] all about the expertise and keeping it in the sector. [If] we undermine the capacity of the sector, you start to mess long term with its potential capacity.”

Eleanor Livingston, director of the StAnza festival, said they had received significant basic funding from Creative Scotland under the now-scrapped flexible funding scheme, which allowed StAnza to stage its most ambitious programme to date in March.

“We’re very disappointed that flexible funding won’t continue, because it we’ve found it extremely useful in helping StAnza develop and expand,” she said.

Creative Scotland is organising a series of meetings with the affected groups to discuss the new strategy. Its executives admit it will involve pain and change for many affected groups, but it insisted that it could be extremely helpful to many companies.

The agency estimates the money available for funding arts projects in Scotland will roughly double to £15m because of a steep increase in National Lottery funding in the next few years; that will increase from £18m in 2010 to £32.3m in 2014, and again the next year.

However, the 49 “projects clients” getting short-term funding will be forced to compete on a project-by-project basis.

Venu Dhupa, the most senior of Creative Scotland’s three creative directors and architect of the restructuring, conceded the shakeup would create a “more volatile environment” and require flexibility for many of the affected companies.

Dhupa said her job was to get the best possible value from public funding, but the agency would try to support the companies and ensure projects lasting for two or three years were funded where possible.

She said: “What we’re trying to do is inject some energy into the ecology [of Scotland's art world] but also have some stability. We know some organisations will find it difficult to adjust to the new climate, but we will do our best to help advise them.”

Creative Scotland has secured the core funding for 40 other major “foundation” organisations, such as the Edinburgh international festival, the Fruitmarket gallery in Edinburgh, Dundee Contemporary Arts, the Tramway and Citizen’s theatre in Glasgow, Edinburgh’s Traverse theatre and Pier Arts Centre in Orkney. Three other arts organisations, including Edinburgh Printmakers workshop, have been added to the list of foundation organisations.

A further 22 organisations have been made “annual clients”, including the cutting-edge Glasgow International arts festival, the Celtic Connections music festival, Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe Society, and the St Magnus music festival in Orkney.

Dhupa said the restructuring would force some companies to become more entrepreneurial and commercially-orientated to win external funding or put on more popular shows. She cited the Canadian-based theatrical circus company Cirque de Soliel and the Robert Lepage dance company as examples of brands which had won independent commercial success.

There would also be a greater emphasis, she said, on finding and cultivating celebrities who could be trained to promote Scotland and Scottish arts and abroad, as well as supporting and promoting volunteers and amateur artists.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/may/17/scottish-arts-shakeup-funding-one-off-projects

The head of the Criminal Bar Association is to raise the spectre of strike action by criminal barristers across England and Wales in protest at cuts in fees and legal aid reforms.

In a confrontational speech, Max Hill QC, will accuse politicians of “duplicity”. signalling a significant souring of the relationship between the legal community and the coalition government.

Disappointed by criminal fees being repeatedly frozen, then cut by 13.5% by the last Labour government and again by a further 11% by the current administration. Hill will declare that the age of “Rumpole is dead”.

The popular perception of “fat cat” lawyers wallowing in claret is inaccurate, Hill will assert, to an audience expected to include the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge. “We may be [Rumpole's] successors but we spend our days worrying about paying the mortgage; worrying about how we can ever afford a pension.”

He will declare: “So let us fight, and let us remember the option to strike … demand better treatment. No more cuts, I say, either for the defence or the prosecution. Do not allow them to say that we must take our share of future cuts demanded by the comprehensive spending review.

“The criminal bar suffered cuts by stagnation in our fees for 15 years before the spending review. Did public sector wages stand still from the mid-nineties? Of course not. But our fees did. And when that argument meets with a hostile reaction, as it will, be ready to strike.”

Any decision to strike is only likely to taken following further conversations with all the 3,500 members of the Criminal Bar Association in England and Wales.

The decision to slice £350m out of the Ministry of Justice’s annual civil legal aid budget has further contributed to the mood of dismay at the bar, Hill will say. He will say the Legal Aid (Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders) Act “will leave many with no recourse to the law when things go badly wrong, and necessary litigation is being sacrificed on the altar of cost despite all of the right arguments of principle being brought to bear”.

Politicians, Hill alleges, express “confidence that the bar will continue to play its vital role in the criminal justice system, when they should be telling the truth, which is: ‘We the government are prepared to settle for cheap, partial justice, but we will con the public into believing it is greedy lawyers who are to blame’.

“In the face of such duplicity, I can and do claim that the role reversal is complete. We at the criminal bar uphold the public interest in access to justice and the maintenance of a proper criminal justice system, whilst it is the government who are obsessed by money.”

Lawyers are the latest professional group to oppose cuts in funding. Last week more than 30,000 police officers marched through London protesting about the impact of government policies on their pay, pensions and working conditions.

Hill’s speech to the CBA also coincides with a decision by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to scrap the minimum wage for trainee solicitors from 2014. The national minimum wage of £6.08 per hour will be the only requirement after that date.

The grievances are widely felt within the Bar, Hill argues. A survey of more than 1,600 CBA members found that 89% were both “prepared to take direct lawful action” and “do not consider the current level of fees for publicly funded defence work is proper and fair remuneration”. More than 80% had suffered from delays in payments by the Legal Services Commission.

Barristers’ “greatest weakness” in the past, he suggests, had been the “reluctance to use our heavy weaponry. A reluctance to use the ultimate weapon; namely stopping the courts, rather than being the backbone of the court system, which we are year in, year out”.

In some cases barristers are facing bankruptcy, Hill will say. One anonymous comment he quoted from the survey said: “The more that those who work in this field are hit by cuts in fees and uncertainty of work and/or a level of earning, the heavier the costs and the more likely they are to outweigh the benefits of stimulation, intellectual challenge and development and the fulfilment inherent in public service.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Striking is never the answer to resolving complaints. The changes we have made to legal aid are necessary and barristers are still paid well for legal aid cases.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/may/18/barristers-strike-legal-aid-fees

Plans to charge single parents for access to the replacement for the Child Support Agency could worsen child poverty, MPs have warned .

The public accounts committee also expressed concern that the fees of up to 12% of any maintenance collected by the new body, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, were being used to fill a black hole in its budget.

The ministers said that half of all children in the UK from separated families are already being brought up in poverty.

Almost half of parents received less than £20 a week – and at that rate £2.40 might be deducted to pay for the service – a lucrative stream of cash for the commission but one that takes money from poor households. The charging scheme also penalises women, as nearly all those who contact authorities are mothers chasing fathers to pay for their child’s care.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the committee, said: “It is essential that parents with responsibilities for care receive the full child maintenance owed to them to support their children.”

“I am concerned that the commission’s cost reduction plans seem to rely heavily on charging parents to use its services. The commission must ensure that the introduction of fees does not end up making child poverty worse,” said Hodge.

The report on Friday also notes that the cash raised by fees means that the commission’s savings target of £151m by 2014 is reduced to £117m — undermining government arguments that the only reason to charge people is to dissuade them from using the system and encourage them to opt for voluntary agreements.

Figures produced by the National Audit Office earlier this year showed that by 2021, the charging regime would be producing £167m in revenue for the commission – money that would disproportionately come from the poor.

The commission will also effectively write off billions of unpaid support. Absent parents now owe £3.7bn in child maintenance but the agency in charge of securing payments only believes it can collect £1bn of that. MPs claimed it “beggars belief” that so much money is being written off and said parents are frustrated at not being paid the right amount of money or any at all.

Hodge also pointed out that a new IT system being introduced by the commision to try to save money is already late.

“To meet the current timetable, the critical testing will need to be done at the same time as the system is being delivered, a recipe for failure in the case of many previous government IT projects. Every month of delay will cost the commission £3m – money it can ill afford to waste.”

Charities said that they were “very unhappy” on the new charging structure. Gingerbread’s chief executive, Fiona Weir, said: “We are very unhappy at the heavy reliance being placed by the commission on charging parents to use the future child maintenance service in order to meet their own costs targets, and the admission by the commission to the committee that cost considerations will reduce the amount of collectable maintenance arrears owed to children that they are willing to collect.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “We thank the committee for its report and will carefully consider its contents before responding fully in due course. Child maintenance presents serious challenges which have tested successive administrations.

“The Government’s fresh approach will encourage and support parents in making their own maintenance arrangements whenever possible — benefiting children, parents and the taxpayer.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/18/child-support-charges-poverty-mps

Taxpayers face losses of at least £2bn on the continued state ownership of Northern Rock, the National Audit Office (NAO) has concluded as it raises questions about the decision by the Treasury to split the Newcastle-based bank in two in 2009.

The lender was split into Northern Rock plc, which resumed lending and was sold to Virgin Money at the start of this year, and Northern Rock Asset Management, the “bad bank” which remains in public hands.

The NAO agrees the sale to Virgin was the best way to prevent more losses and concludes that UK Financial Investments (UKFI), which controlled Northern Rock from 2010, had handled the sales process well.

But it said the Treasury, when Labour’s Alistair Darling was chancellor, “would have benefited from more effective arrangements for internal challenge of its plans in 2009″ to split the bank up.

Under the terms agreed with the European Commission to split the bank, at least 50% of Northern Rock plc had to be sold by a by a “confidential deadline” of 31 December 2013, the NAO said.

But while the spending watchdog points out that the Treasury did not consider alternatives to splitting Northern Rock, it acknowledges that decision to create a new mortgage lender was taken at a time when lending was falling and that the rejuvenated lender provided 22% of all net lending on mortgages during 2010-11.

It said: “The alternative of selling the deposits and closing down the business was, however, unlikely to have been significantly better in financial terms and would not have delivered mortgage lending.”

Amyas Morse, the auditor general, said: “Amidst the serious economic turmoil of 2009, it was a reasonable to create Northern Rock plc to support mortgage lending. No alternative was likely to have been significantly better, but the Treasury committed itself before looking in detail at the possible consequences for the taxpayer.

“A sale of Northern Rock plc at the earliest opportunity was the best option to minimise losses on the £1.4bn of public money invested in the bank.”

However, he said the continued state ownership of the “bad” bank would present costs for the taxpayer: “Most of the former Northern Rock’s assets will be in public ownership for many years to come and there could be a net cost for the taxpayer of some £2bn by the time these assets are finally wound down.”

This is based on assumptions that a private investor would demand a higher return on its investment of the 3.5% to 4.5% which UKFI has assumed would be a return for the Treasury.

“Applying a higher discount rate of 6% a year to the cash flows implies that there may be a net present cost for the taxpayer of some £2bn by the time the assets are fully wound down,” the NAO report says.

Margaret Hodge, the MP who chairs of the public accounts committee, said: “Given the scale of the crisis, we are fortunate that the net present cost to the taxpayer is potentially not more than £2bn. But this is perhaps more by luck than good judgement.

“Although forced to act swiftly at a time of great financial instability, the Treasury took a big risk with taxpayers’ money by going ahead with the decision to split the bank without undertaking due diligence or carrying out a proper analysis of the potential consequences for the taxpayer.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/18/northern-rock-split-taxpayers-bill

Parenting classes should be taken as seriously as driving lessons, David Cameron will declare as he announces measures to help the “nation-builders” raising Britain’s next generation.

The prime minister, whose Can Parent initiative is allowing parents to fund classes through £100 vouchers handed out at Boots in some areas, said his plans represented the “sensible state” rather than the nanny state. The parenting classes in 10 two-hour sessions will offer advice on nutrition, behaviour and development.

Cameron made it clear on Thursday that he would like to introduce tax breaks for childcare. He reportedly told a Manchester businesswoman after making a speech in the city that he was “hugely attracted to the idea of making childcare tax allowable”.

The prime minister will launch a strong defence of parenting classes. “It’s ludicrous that we should expect people to train for hours to drive a car or use a computer but, when it comes to looking after a baby, we tell people to just get on with it,” he will say.

Cameron, whose late son Ivan was severely paralysed, admits he would have appreciated guidance: “I would have loved more guidance when my children were babies. We’ve all been there when it’s the middle of the night, your child won’t stop crying and you don’t know what to do

“Parents are nation-builders. It’s through love and sheer hard work that we raise the next generation with the right values. That’s why this government is doing everything possible to support parents. This is not the nanny state – it’s the sensible state.

“To those who say that government should forget about parenting and families and focus on the big, gritty issues, I’d say these are the big, gritty issues. Families don’t just shape us as individuals, they make a stronger society. That’s why supporting families is right at the top of our agenda – and I’m going to make sure it stays that way.”

Parenting classes will take place as pilot schemes, backed by a new website, in Middlesbrough, Camden in north London and in High Peak, Derbyshire. A relationship support service will be piloted in York, Leeds, north Essex and in some London boroughs from July for all expectant parents and those with children up to the age of two.

The idea, drawn up by the prime minister’s departing policy guru Steve Hilton, is one response to the riots of last summer.

Frank Field, Labour’s former welfare minister, previously proposed parenting classes in a report for Cameron in December 2010. Field said they should be routinely offered to new parents. They “should be seen as something normal to do, rather than remedial, or something only for low income families”.

Field wrote: “Poor parenting exists across the income distribution, but tends to have less of an impact on better-off children where other factors provide greater protection against poor outcomes.”

He said that children’s centres and home visitors should encourage parents to attend classes “as a matter of course”. Health visitors should offer “to sign them up as a matter of routine, initially targeting this on those most likely to benefit”.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/18/parenting-lessons-not-nanny-state-david-cameron

Four examiners have had their contracts terminated and 78 others have been ordered to improve their performance after mistakes were made in calculating pupils’ scores in GCSE and A-level papers from last summer.

The exam board OCR has apologised for marking errors that affected GCSE and A-level grades. Exams regulator Ofqual said it could not be certain that all candidates had the grades they deserved.

Channel 4 News said David Leitch, a senior supervisor at OCR, found wrongly calculated final scores in 100 papers from last summer that schools had referred for checking. A wider search found “hundreds more” mistakes by the same markers but Leitch claims he was instructed to inform only schools which had requested paid-for remarking.

Dissatisfied with a review ordered by regulator Ofqual, the programme reported, he emailed 30 schools directly to alert them to errors and has now been suspended by OCR pending a full inquiry.

Ofqual’s director of regulation, Fiona Pethick, said questions remained over the accuracy of marks. Asked if she could be personally sure that no pupil still had a lower grade than they should, potentially affecting a university place, she told the programme: “I’m not satisfied yet. That’s why we will be continuing to look into this matter and if we find OCR to be negligent we will take action.”

The errors related to examiners totting up marks from traditional pen and paper scripts. The exam board said its investigation had found 16 cases where pupils had received a lower grade than they should – eight AS-levels, two A-levels and six GCSEs.

It resulted in the termination of four examiners’ contracts, while 78 others out of 13,000 – “almost all” teachers and ex-teachers with relevant degrees – were ordered to improve their performance.

Mark Dawe, OCR’s chief executive, said: “Any error in the exam process is unacceptable and we have taken action to implement more robust processes. This included terminating the contracts of weaker examiners. Students taking exams in the spring and this summer can be assured that mistakes of any sort will not be tolerated.”

The exam board’s qualifications director, Clara Kenyon, said OCR had not been made aware of the existence of further errors. “We were not told of the existence of these additional scripts with mistakes on them until schools contacted us,” she said. “This is of course a concern and we are processing them in the usual way and will make grade changes, if required, and inform schools.”

The board was confident that new safeguards would provide “a high level of clerical accuracy” in future, she said, pointing out that marks for three in four papers were calculated electronically.

All papers are due to be handled electronically by 2014.

“Students taking exams both in the spring and this summer can be assured that mistakes of any sort will not be tolerated and we have taken the necessary measures to guard against them,” Kenyon said.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/17/examiners-axed-after-marking-mistakes

The Vauxhall car plant at Ellesmere Port has been saved from closure, preserving 2,100 jobs and creating 700 more, after workers accepted a deal that will result in the next-generation Astra built at the factory.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, visited the plant on Thursday to mark an agreement that, in a rare reversal of industrial fortune, could lead to the closure of a sister plant in Germany.

The European arm of General Motors, Opel/Vauxhall, will split production of the new Astra model between the Cheshire site and a plant in Gliwice, Poland, with Opel’s factory in Bochum, Germany, likely to lose out as a consequence.

Ellesmere Port and Bochum had been chosen by GM executives as the plants most likely to close, triggering frantic lobbying by British politicians and trade union officials that appears to have paid off. GM is attempting to cut losses at its European operations that reached $747m (£470m) last year.

Workers at the plant voted 94% in favour of new pay and conditions under the deal, clearing the way for the £125m investment to go ahead.

Cable, an Astra owner, told the Guardian the government had serious concerns over the future of Ellesmere Port earlier this year. “At the beginning,” he said, “we were very concerned because it was clear that GM were committed to substantial downsizing in Europe. But we thought that this was one of the most productive plants and it was not being fully utilised. We had a good story to tell about the British car industry.” Cable said the plant had been saved by a “team UK effort” that included officials at the Unite trade union, led by former general secretary Tony Woodley.

Asked about the Bochum plant, Cable said: “I don’t want to be triumphalist but the fact that they have chosen to commit to the UK rather than the German plants is a significant statement in a way.

“But rather than dance up and down on Germany I would prefer to leave it as a positive story for us.” Cable said he would be “in the market” for buying the new Astra when it rolls off the Ellesmere Port production line from 2015 onwards.

Welcoming the news, David Cameron said: “This is excellent news for Ellesmere Port and for UK manufacturing. Once again we have seen the success of the UK automotive industry and the crucial role it plays in growing and rebalancing our economy.

“This has been a real team effort with the government, the company, unions and workers all focused on keeping production in the UK.”

The government is expected to support the expansion of Ellesmere Port through supply chain and apprenticeship initiatives.

Unite’s current general secretary, Len McCluskey, said the plant’s future had been guaranteed into the next decade. “This is extremely good news for Ellesmere Port. The company has made an offer to the workforce, which our members have accepted.

“From a position of uncertainty earlier this year, there is now a potential for a future at the plant until 2020 and beyond, and with that, 700 new skilled jobs at Ellesmere Port itself, and possibly hundreds more in the supply chain.”

The site is 50 years old this year and employs 2,100 workers, plus a further 700 suppliers on the site. The directly employed staff have accepted a new labour agreement that includes a pay deal. Woodley played a significant role in negotiating the deal, which will result in Ellesmere Port ratchet^{ing up to a 24-hour production cycle, from two daily shifts to three.}

GM is not the only carmaker scrutinising its European operations. Analysts believe the industry in Europe is more than 3m units over capacity. GM owns seven plants in Europe, including a van factory in Luton, which is not under immediate threat. Ellesmere Port builds the Astra Sports Tourer, making 140,000 models last year. The plant was built in 1962, producing its first car, a Viva, two years later. As well as creating 700 new jobs, the new agreement will see £125m invested in the plant, which will produce a minimum of 160,000 vehicles per year.

The doubts about Ellesmere Port’s future have been the only cloud over a UK car manufacturing industry that is enjoying a renaissance from the post-crash lows of 2008-09. Britain made about 1.34m cars last year, an increase of 6% on 2010. A large contributor to the boom is demand in emerging markets for premium cars, such as Minis, Land Rovers and Bentleys – all made in the UK.

However, the mass-produced market has been suffering across Europe and Ellesmere Port has been caught by that crisis. Nonetheless, other mass producers based in the UK, such as the Japanese trio of Honda, Toyota and Nissan – the biggest car producer in the UK – have boosted their British production plans in recent months.

Vauxhall’s chairman, Duncan Aldred, said: “This is great news for the Ellesmere Port plant, our employees, the local community, our suppliers, the Vauxhall brand and the UK. We have been able to develop a responsible labour agreement that secures the plant’s future. This is assisted by the government’s industrial strategy: increasing its focus on the manufacturing sector and creating ideal ground for companies to build up long-term investments.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/17/general-motors-ellesmere-port-vauxhall

Sam Hallam has criticised the Metropolitan police for taking away eight years of his life after the court of appeal quashed his conviction for murder when hearing fresh evidence that “significantly undermined” his conviction.

Speaking outside the high court, Hallam – who was put in prison at the age of 17 and released only on Wednesday – said he had not received an apology from the police for wrongly focusing on him as one of the killers of Essayas Kassahun in a gang attack in Hoxton, north London, in 2004.

“It [the investigation] just wasn’t done properly,” he said.

“Them not doing their job properly cost me eight years of my life. I lost eight years of my life and nothing is going to happen to them.”

The court of appeal quashed his 2005 conviction for murder on Thursday after hearing that evidence he had had all along on his own mobile phone undermined the case against him.

The phone was never examined by the Metropolitan police investigating the murder of Kassahun, nor by Hallam’s own defence team, nor raised as an issue by him – which Lady Justice Hallett blamed on his own “faulty recollection and dysfunctional lifestyle”.

Hallam was released on bail on Wednesday when the crown surprisingly announced that it would not oppose his appeal. He is one of the youngest victims of a miscarriage of justice. His freedom had come after a massive campaign was launched – eliciting the support of the actor Ray Winstone among others – to clear his name.

But in her ruling on Thursday, Hallett said what had emerged was that Hallam had evidence in his possession – his mobile phone – that could have helped him all along. When he was arrested, Hallam could not remember where he was on the night of the murder. He later said he was with a friend – Timothy Harrington – but Harrington denied being with him, and the crown claimed at the trial that Hallam had clearly made up an alibi.

Hallam remained silent when he was arrested by the police shortly after the killing in 2004.

“It has to be said that his inability two days after to say where he was at the time of the murder has not exactly helped his case,” Hallett said. She asked why neither the police nor his legal team had examined his two mobile phones

“One reason proffered for the failure to examine the phones was that in 2004 the Metropolitan police did not have the technology in use for 3G phones,” she said.

“However, given our limited knowledge, we would have thought that even a cursory check would have produced some interesting results.”

When Hallam’s 3G phone was eventually examined by the CCRC and Thames Valley police – which carried out inquiries for the CCRC – it was found to contain pictures that put Hallam in a pub with his father on the evening of the killing and also showed that he had been with Harrington the day after – thereby giving credence to his original alibi.

It raised the distinct possibility, the judge said, that Hallam and his friend Harrington had merely been mistaken as to when they had met and that he had not – as was claimed – concocted an alibi.

Expressing surprise that Hallam himself had not mentioned the existence of his phone or the fact that he had been taking pictures with it to his legal team, she said: “We would have thought the appellant [Hallam] would have alerted the defence team that he had been taking photos on a new phone, which would have helped establish his whereabouts.”

She blamed his failure to alert them on his “faulty recollection and a dysfunctional lifestyle, not a deliberate lie”.

Hallett stopped short of criticising the Met or the Crown Prosecution Service, which were accused by Hallam’s defence team at his appeal of failing to pursue lines of inquiry and not disclosing all the evidence.

Quashing his murder conviction, Hallett said there was now significant material before the court that supported Hallam’s story that he was not at the scene of the murder on the night.

“The situation has now changed dramatically,” said Hallett. The “false alibi” claim that the prosecution had used to support their two witnesses had now been “significantly undermined”.

The Met police said: “The death of Essayas Kassahun was a tragedy and what followed was a complex investigation for which one person remains convicted. It is a matter of deep regret that Sam Hallam lost his liberty due to what has subsequently been found to be an unsafe conviction. The circumstances of his death involved a large group of people and this type of investigation often relies on people coming forward to give us personal accounts. We continue to face challenging investigations such as these and there are undoubtedly certain lessons to be learned for police and the wider criminal justice system from today’s judgement which we will carefully consider.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/17/sam-hallam-murder-conviction-quashed

One can decry the anachronism that is any royal family until one’s face is the hue of royal blood, but sometimes even those of us who are the staunchest of republicans must concede that there are certain fields in which royal members do simply reign above the rest of us. Wearing nude tights. Maintaining neutral facial expressions while watching performances of obscure forms of provincial dance. Visiting Tesco with an entourage of security. And, as robustly demonstrated this week by Queen Sofia of Spain, the execution of a perfect snub.

This week, the Spanish queen has dared to snub our very own – and she’s done it with exquisite, icy style. Having accepted an invitation to the Queen’s jubilee lunch at Windsor Castle on Friday, Sofia has now declared (or rather, had her people declare) that she won’t be coming after all because “it would be inappropriate … in the current circumstances” – the unspoken but crystal clear circumstances being that Spain is still totally not cool with the way Britain is hanging on to Gibraltar.

And what a useful reminder it is. For a snub is indeed a useful weapon in the social arsenal, as valuable to us as it is to the more fancy-born. As Sofia has demonstrated, it’s a fairly straightforward to carry one out in an elegant way, as long as you keep the dos and don’ts of snubbery in mind:

DO make sure the person (or nation) you are snubbing knows that you are snubbing them. I once felt very pleased with myself for snubbing the birthday party of a former schoolmate against whom I’d been holding a grudge since we were 12. Until I realised that she probably didn’t know that I was snubbing it because I had simply turned down the invitation, as if I was busy. Mediating your snub, therefore, is important: if you are a queen, you can probably depend on the Telegraph to broadcast it, but if you are a non-queen you might have to do it yourself on Facebook.

DO remember that the best snubs are the ones that give the impression that you have changed your mind about something. Turning down an invitation immediately with an excuse, even a vague one, isn’t a snub; as Sofia has shown, accepting an invitation and then cancelling at very short notice is. So, DON’T say “I’m sorry, I can’t come after all because I realised that I had a conflicting engagement, what a terrible shame, I’ll make it up to you”. DO say “I’m sorry, I can’t come after all because, well, you know”. Then, do a close-lipped smile.

DO keep the specific for the snub vague. Telling the object of your snub why you’re snubbing them might make them try to have a reasonable conversation about the conflict, or (worse) offer you an apology, which takes the wind out of the sails of your snub. Queen Sofia’s “under the current circumstances” is the perfect snubbing phrase, because it means nothing and so much all at once; implying that the recipient of the snub knows exactly what the awful circumstances are without being so tasteless as to rehash them. I bet it made the Queen squirm – and goodness knows, no snub is successful if it doesn’t induce squirms in its subject.

DON’T forget the next time you run in to the object of your snub – at a convention for aristocrats, say, or at the cinema if you’re a normal person – to greet them breezily and maintain a neutral facial expression, perhaps in the manner of a member of a royal family watching a performance of an obscure form of provincial dance. When properly executed, this will almost always make the object of your snub feel so desperate for approval that they will offer you their undying love and beg you to come as an honoured guest to their next party. Which is probably all that you secretly wanted in the first place.

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Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/17/perfect-snub-queen-sofia-spain