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latest from sensemaker

Ukraine vs cats

One of Europe’s largest ammunition manufacturers says a planned expansion for a factory in central Norway to meet surging demand due to the war in Ukraine has been held up because a new data centre for TikTok is using all the spare electricity in the area. The chief executive of Nammo, which is co-owned by the Norwegian government, told the Financial Times that demand for artillery rounds was more than 15 times higher than normal. “We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos,” Morten Brandtzæg said. TikTok has announced plans to store European data locally in response to security concerns – and the European Commission estimates that data centres will guzzle 3.2 per cent of the bloc’s electricity by 2030. With the clean energy transition also driving battery and steel firms to the Nordics, this is not the last fight over who should get priority access to Europe’s electricity grids.

America’s Piketty

Two numbers from a must-read FT interview with Matthew Desmond: $175 billion and $11.7 billion. The first is the sum the US Treasury would realise if the top 1 per cent of American earners paid all the tax they owed. (As it is they pay tax at an effective rate of 22 per cent compared with 25 per cent for low and middle-income earners.) The second is the annual revenue flowing to US banks from overdraft fees, most of it paid by those defined in federal statistics as poor. Desmond is a Princeton sociology professor and author of Poverty, by America. He’s also the son of an Arizona pastor on Route 66 whose family home was repossessed when he lost his job. Crucially, Desmond’s new book doesn’t just target the 1 per cent. It shows how a largely liberal upper middle class is complicit in American poverty.

ECB v Raiffeisen Bank

The European Central Bank is putting pressure on Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank to pull out of Russia. It’s a significant tussle because Raiffeisen is the most important western bank still operating there, handling a quarter of all Euro payments into the Russian economy, and it has no immediate plans to give up such a big part of its business despite hints from Washington that it might be violating sanctions. If this was just a bank thumbing its nose at international efforts to stop funds flowing to Russia’s war machine it might be comprehensible if not forgivable. But it isn’t. Reuters reports that Raiffeisen has senior government officials onside, including a finance ministry spokesperson arguing effectively that if this bank doesn’t handle payments for Russian raw materials, others will. Maybe so. But does Austria really need reminding of its history?

A bit rich

Rishi Sunak’s investment income has dwarfed his ministerial salary over the past three years, and Boris Johnson can only gnash his teeth. Johnson’s desperate hoovering of money has been a leit (or dark) motif of his political career (see above). Sunak makes being rich look easy by comparison. His tax return shows he earned £4.7 million between 2019 and 2021. Most of it was income from one US-based investment fund on which he paid capital gains tax at 20 per cent. His overall tax rate was 22 per cent, compared with the UK’s top income tax rate of 45 per cent. The return was released on a busy news day, which drew attention to it, but less than it would have without the distractions of Johnson’s testimony on “partygate”. Brazen but effective.

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The cost of living crisis: all in it together?

“Nicola Peltz: Hi, I’m Nicola PeltzBrooklyn Beckham: Hi, I’m Brooklyn Beckham… Both: …and this is the GQ Couples Quiz. Brooklyn Beckham: That was in sync.Nicola Peltz: We killed that. Are you ready?” Clip from GQ Couple Quiz In early 2022, Nicola Peltz – the daughter of an American billionaire – and Brooklyn Beckham – the son of Britain’s most famous couple, David and Victoria Beckham, were in the middle of a PR blitz.  Charming and chatty… suddenly, they were everywhere.  “Hi I’m Nicola Peltz and I’m Brooklyn and this is British Vogue’s Mr & Mrs challenge…”Vogue clip “James Corden: I mean Brooklyn you’re getting married! In a couple of months time! *audience clap* Congratulations… We’re very much looking forward to it…”Clip Late Late Show “Hi Vogue it’s Brooklyn and today I’m cooking a special Valentine’s Day dinner for my fiancé Nicola…”Vogue clip What they were selling was… themselves. Or really, their relationship. In April 2022 they were getting married.  It was a fairytale for the digital age… and it was supposed to launch them as the new gen-z it couple.  “Nicola Peltz: Okay, describe my ideal wedding. Brooklyn Beckham: [intake of breath] Probably our two families… very small, very petite, you know, very lovely, like, colours… your favourite colours are like pink, light blue… creams… you know what, I don’t know. Nicola Peltz: Okay… [laughing a bit]Brooklyn Beckham: But our wedding is going to be lovely. Nicola Peltz: You did half good…” Clip from GQ Couples Quiz Brooklyn Beckham’s attempt to describe his fiancé’s ideal wedding was slightly off…  A couple of months later they tied the knot in a multi-million dollar ceremony at Nicola Peltz’s vast family mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. With around 600 invited guests… and three days of celebrations… it was not small. The wedding was exclusively covered by Vogue. The magazine detailed the speeches, the emotion, and – of course – the year-long fitting process for Nicola Peltz’s custom Valentino dress. It was a picture-perfect day with a press roll-out that was planned to the final detail. Until eight months later, when Nicola’s father, Nelson Peltz, quietly filed a lawsuit against two of the wedding planners.    *** Nelson Peltz spent 2022 building a multi-million dollar stake in Unilever, the consumer goods company, and gearing up for a fight with Disney to try and get a seat on the board.  This is Spencer Jakab from the Wall Street Journal: “He’s not the largest shareholder by far, but he’s the loudest shareholder and was demanding all kinds of changes.”Spencer Jakab With a fortune estimated to be around $1.5 billion, Nelson Peltz is one of the wealthiest people in the United States.  So when he filed a lawsuit requesting two wedding planners who briefly worked on his daughter’s wedding return a deposit of $159,000 – pocket change for a man like him – heads turned.  The original wedding designer had left with just six weeks to go. And the new planners, Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba, lasted a matter of days.  In the lawsuit, Nelson Peltz describes Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba as unprofessional and incompetent, and accused them of misrepresenting their experience. He claims that they were fired before they signed an official contract.  But… the wedding planners are fighting back.  They filed a countersuit for breach of contract, labelling Nelson Peltz a “billionaire bully”. They released hundreds of private text messages and emails from the run-up to the big day.  Predictably… the countersuit went viral.  “Would any of us actually give a [bleep] about this wedding were it not for the insane lawsuit? Absolutely not!””…plus everyone knows the litigation is likely to last longer than the actual marriage itself…””You know how your wedding is supposed to be the best day of your life? Well not so much for Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham…”TikTok montage Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba allege that they saved the Peltz family from “public humiliation” by bringing order to a “chaotic situation”.  It’s a bomb dropped right into the laps of Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham. So, why does it matter? *** The Peltz-Beckham wedding lawsuit is a glimpse into the world of the rich and famous. And it’s about the game of celebrity – and who knows how to play it.  For Nelson Peltz, the calculation seems simple: he’s out to right a wrong. A source close to the Peltz family told Tortoise that the behaviour of the wedding planners demanded a response.  “No, it does not surprise me to hear that Nelson Peltz is fighting over perhaps $150,000 and being litigious because you know, the mindset that he has – a sort of a bulldog watching every penny bottom line mindset – is what one needs to get to that level of wealth. Spencer Jakab In Nelson Peltz’s business world being likeable doesn’t matter. But for his daughter and son-in-law… being liked is everything.  The details of the lawsuit undermine the carefully crafted image that Brooklyn and Nicola and their team of PRs have spent months curating – of a perfect, frictionless lifestyle and a perfect, frictionless wedding. It reveals to the world how artificial the whole thing is.  Chris Lochery is editor of Popbitch, the celebrity gossip newsletter. “I would think this only sort of makes them look, uh, like disinterested self-involved nepo-babies, which is really the sort of thing they probably are trying to avoid… It’s the worst, the worst possible combination of being very fixated on tiny details and then very, very sloppy with actual, proper logistics that might help.Chris Lochery It’s hard to cultivate a brand new – effortless – image when your texts are being shared all over the internet, telling a different story.  The lawsuit is a rare moment we get to glimpse behind the curtain and see the ugly reality of how the celebrity sausage gets made.  It shows us the competing priorities between wealth and fame.  Yes, the wedding was a private, family moment… but it was also a career opportunity for both Nicola and Brooklyn. It was a business deal of a different kind.  The lawsuit might have just ruined that deal.  The episode of the Sensemaker was written and producer by Claudia Williams and Imy Harper.

thinkin

The cost of living crisis: all in it together?

“Nicola Peltz: Hi, I’m Nicola PeltzBrooklyn Beckham: Hi, I’m Brooklyn Beckham… Both: …and this is the GQ Couples Quiz. Brooklyn Beckham: That was in sync.Nicola Peltz: We killed that. Are you ready?” Clip from GQ Couple Quiz In early 2022, Nicola Peltz – the daughter of an American billionaire – and Brooklyn Beckham – the son of Britain’s most famous couple, David and Victoria Beckham, were in the middle of a PR blitz.  Charming and chatty… suddenly, they were everywhere.  “Hi I’m Nicola Peltz and I’m Brooklyn and this is British Vogue’s Mr & Mrs challenge…”Vogue clip “James Corden: I mean Brooklyn you’re getting married! In a couple of months time! *audience clap* Congratulations… We’re very much looking forward to it…”Clip Late Late Show “Hi Vogue it’s Brooklyn and today I’m cooking a special Valentine’s Day dinner for my fiancé Nicola…”Vogue clip What they were selling was… themselves. Or really, their relationship. In April 2022 they were getting married.  It was a fairytale for the digital age… and it was supposed to launch them as the new gen-z it couple.  “Nicola Peltz: Okay, describe my ideal wedding. Brooklyn Beckham: [intake of breath] Probably our two families… very small, very petite, you know, very lovely, like, colours… your favourite colours are like pink, light blue… creams… you know what, I don’t know. Nicola Peltz: Okay… [laughing a bit]Brooklyn Beckham: But our wedding is going to be lovely. Nicola Peltz: You did half good…” Clip from GQ Couples Quiz Brooklyn Beckham’s attempt to describe his fiancé’s ideal wedding was slightly off…  A couple of months later they tied the knot in a multi-million dollar ceremony at Nicola Peltz’s vast family mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. With around 600 invited guests… and three days of celebrations… it was not small. The wedding was exclusively covered by Vogue. The magazine detailed the speeches, the emotion, and – of course – the year-long fitting process for Nicola Peltz’s custom Valentino dress. It was a picture-perfect day with a press roll-out that was planned to the final detail. Until eight months later, when Nicola’s father, Nelson Peltz, quietly filed a lawsuit against two of the wedding planners.    *** Nelson Peltz spent 2022 building a multi-million dollar stake in Unilever, the consumer goods company, and gearing up for a fight with Disney to try and get a seat on the board.  This is Spencer Jakab from the Wall Street Journal: “He’s not the largest shareholder by far, but he’s the loudest shareholder and was demanding all kinds of changes.”Spencer Jakab With a fortune estimated to be around $1.5 billion, Nelson Peltz is one of the wealthiest people in the United States.  So when he filed a lawsuit requesting two wedding planners who briefly worked on his daughter’s wedding return a deposit of $159,000 – pocket change for a man like him – heads turned.  The original wedding designer had left with just six weeks to go. And the new planners, Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba, lasted a matter of days.  In the lawsuit, Nelson Peltz describes Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba as unprofessional and incompetent, and accused them of misrepresenting their experience. He claims that they were fired before they signed an official contract.  But… the wedding planners are fighting back.  They filed a countersuit for breach of contract, labelling Nelson Peltz a “billionaire bully”. They released hundreds of private text messages and emails from the run-up to the big day.  Predictably… the countersuit went viral.  “Would any of us actually give a [bleep] about this wedding were it not for the insane lawsuit? Absolutely not!””…plus everyone knows the litigation is likely to last longer than the actual marriage itself…””You know how your wedding is supposed to be the best day of your life? Well not so much for Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham…”TikTok montage Nicole Braghin and Arianna Grijalba allege that they saved the Peltz family from “public humiliation” by bringing order to a “chaotic situation”.  It’s a bomb dropped right into the laps of Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham. So, why does it matter? *** The Peltz-Beckham wedding lawsuit is a glimpse into the world of the rich and famous. And it’s about the game of celebrity – and who knows how to play it.  For Nelson Peltz, the calculation seems simple: he’s out to right a wrong. A source close to the Peltz family told Tortoise that the behaviour of the wedding planners demanded a response.  “No, it does not surprise me to hear that Nelson Peltz is fighting over perhaps $150,000 and being litigious because you know, the mindset that he has – a sort of a bulldog watching every penny bottom line mindset – is what one needs to get to that level of wealth. Spencer Jakab In Nelson Peltz’s business world being likeable doesn’t matter. But for his daughter and son-in-law… being liked is everything.  The details of the lawsuit undermine the carefully crafted image that Brooklyn and Nicola and their team of PRs have spent months curating – of a perfect, frictionless lifestyle and a perfect, frictionless wedding. It reveals to the world how artificial the whole thing is.  Chris Lochery is editor of Popbitch, the celebrity gossip newsletter. “I would think this only sort of makes them look, uh, like disinterested self-involved nepo-babies, which is really the sort of thing they probably are trying to avoid… It’s the worst, the worst possible combination of being very fixated on tiny details and then very, very sloppy with actual, proper logistics that might help.Chris Lochery It’s hard to cultivate a brand new – effortless – image when your texts are being shared all over the internet, telling a different story.  The lawsuit is a rare moment we get to glimpse behind the curtain and see the ugly reality of how the celebrity sausage gets made.  It shows us the competing priorities between wealth and fame.  Yes, the wedding was a private, family moment… but it was also a career opportunity for both Nicola and Brooklyn. It was a business deal of a different kind.  The lawsuit might have just ruined that deal.  The episode of the Sensemaker was written and producer by Claudia Williams and Imy Harper.

thinkin

Making sense of Londongrad, with Paul Caruana-Galizia

In his recent Londongrad podcast series which investigated the influence of Russian oligarchs, Paul Caruana-Galizia uncovered the extent of Russian influence at the heart of UK government, business and the media. What does the story of the oligarchs say about Britain and its place in the world today? Has the country been betrayed by the very institutions that are supposed to protect it, and can the situation be fixed? As we build a clearer picture of the scale and complexity of Russian influence in the UK, what are the options for the future?  editor and invited experts Paul Caruana-GaliziaReporter Bill BrowderCEO and Co-Founder, Hermitage Capital Management

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Making sense of the right to protest, with Dave Taylor

The government is trying again to pass new laws to stop disruptive and noisy protest from environmental groups like Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion. Is the right to live without disruption more important than the right to protest? Join Tortoise editor David Taylor and special guests to work out where you stand. editor and invited experts David TaylorEditor Emmanuelle AndrewsPolicy and Campaigns, Liberty Rev. Gregory Seal LivingstonFounder & President of EquanomicsGlobal Sophie CorcoranConservative Activist and Commentator

thinkin

In conversation with Jack Monroe

Monroe rose to prominence writing about their struggles to feed their young son with a food budget of £10 a week on their blog ‘Cooking on a Bootstrap’. Since then, Monroe has published cookbooks filled with “austerity recipes” and has given evidence in Parliament highlighting the impact of the rising cost of basic food items on people living in poverty.In response to George Eustice’s suggestion that shoppers could “manage their household budget” by changing the brands they buy, they responded that “somebody who claims £196,000 in expenses in a single year is in no position to tell other people to get cheaper biscuits”.Join us for a very special ThinkIn with Jack, where we’ll be talking all about food poverty campaigning, the cost of living crisis, and the inflation of a bag of pasta with their trademark wit and cutting commentary. editor and invited experts David TaylorEditor Jack MonroeCampaigner, Author and Blogger — ‘Cooking on a Bootstrap’

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Should you own a second home?

Before the pandemic, government figures showed 772,000 households in England had second homes. At the same time, the UK is estimated to have around 227,000 people experiencing the worst forms of homelessness. In many small coastal communities, locals are being pushed out to make way for second or even third home ownership and rental properties. The influx of visitors can support local tourism and hospitality businesses, but what is the long-term cost to the community? This all came to a head at the start of the pandemic when wealthy individuals escaped the city in favour of more rural living; which resulted in locals – afraid of the transmission of COVID – pushing back and telling second home owners to go back to where they came from. So what has the pandemic taught us about second home ownership? Should people be allowed to own multiple homes, or should home ownership be restricted?   editor and invited experts Matthew d’AnconaEditor Catherine NavinCampaigner, First Not Second Homes Chris BaileyCampaign Manager, Action on Empty Homes Jonathan RolandeProperty Expert

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Women @ Work – Is the great resignation set to continue?

The pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on women – burnout, for example, has reached alarmingly high levels. At the same time, many women have made career and life decisions driven by their experiences during the pandemic. For some, this has meant seeking new, more flexible working patterns; for others, it has meant leaving their employers or the workforce entirely.Is the great resignation set to continue?  What will it take for organisations to support and retain women in the new normal?  After a two-year setback for gender equality in the workplace, what actions should employers be taking? editor and invited experts Tessa MurrayEditor Dr Vinika Devasar RaoExecutive Director, INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute and Gender Initiative; Director, Hoffman Global Institute for Business & Society, Asia Emma CoddGlobal Inclusion Leader, Deloitte

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What do we owe each other now? A ThinkIn with Minouche Shafik

This is a newsroom ThinkIn. In-person and digital-only tickets are available.Anger manifested in polarised politics, culture wars and intergenerational tensions over climate change have revealed great disaffection in recent years. Minouche Shafik argues that this widespread discontent stems from the failure of existing social contracts to deliver on people’s expectations for both security and opportunity. How should society pool risks, share resources and balance the individual with collective responsibility?Join us for a ThinkIn with the director of the London School of Economics and author of What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract, where she will draw on evidence from across the globe to identify the key principles every society must adopt if it is to meet the challenges of the coming century. We will be asking her and our members the age old question: what do we owe each other? editor and invited experts James HardingCo-Founder and Editor Minouche ShafikDirector of London School of Economics and Political Science and Author of ‘What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract’

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Redesigning Work: Is hybrid the answer? A ThinkIn with Lynda Gratton

This is a newsroom ThinkIn. In-person and digital-only tickets are available.Two years into the COVID19 pandemic and people in the UK are feeling things return to some semblance of normality – socialising is allowed, masks are not always required and the news isn’t always about COVID. But one change seems here to stay: hybrid working. And Lynda Gratton suggests, in her new book ‘Redesigning Work’ that this is the greatest global shift in the world of work for a century. But it’s not all plain sailing. Adapting global businesses and habits to this new structure of working requires a significant effort and a fundamental re-learning.Lynda has spent thirty years researching the technological, demographic, cultural and societal trends that are shaping work. Combining her knowledge and years of experience with all that the pandemic has taught us, she presents a four-step framework for redesigning work. Join this ThinkIn as we ask: how can we make remote working work.  editor and invited experts James HardingCo-Founder and Editor Lynda GrattonProfessor of Management Practice at London Business School and Author of ‘The 100 Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity’

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The art of the deal: why does the property sector give so much to political parties?

This is a digital-only ThinkIn. Political parties are awash with donations from property developers. More than £60m has been donated by property developers to the Conservative party over the past decade alone. Robert Jenrick, former Communities Secretary, was accused of bias after overruling planning inspectors over a developed proposed by Richard Desmond — just days after he had donated £12,000 to the Conservative Party.  The issue is not restricted to national politics. In 2018, a Westminster City councillor was forced to resign after receiving nearly 900 instances of hospitality or gifts over a six year period — the majority of which from property developers trying to get planning permission. What is it about our property and planning sectors that attract so much political cash? Is this simply a story of buying political favour? Do we need to radically reform party funding, and does the system need to be more transparent?  editor and invited experts Emily BennEditor Duncan HamesDirector of Policy, Transparency International Peter Geoghegan Investigations Editor at openDemocracy and Author of ‘Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics’ Sue HawleyExecutive Director at Spotlight on Corruption