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Lobbying, lawyers and a media blitz: the fight to kill the Church of England’s £100m slavery compensation fund

“This is virtue signalling,” said Nigel Biggar. “These are elites who are trying to demonstrate that they are being progressive.” The target of his scorn was one that has obsessed him for years: the movement to pay reparations for the slave trade, and specifically the Church of England’s plan to spend £100m atoning for its involvement. “I’ve got north of 100 parish churches in my constituency, many of them crumbling,” added Katie Lam, an up-and-coming Conservative MP and immigration hardliner. Lord Biggar, a retired professor, Conservative peer and Anglican priest, was speaking alongside Lam last September on a Spectator podcast named after his latest book, Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt. Since the church’s commissioners – who manage the church’s endowment – announced in 2023 that they would set up the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice to make amends for the church’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, Biggar has led the backlash. In doing so he has gone from fringe voice to one of the most widely published proponents of revisionist theories about colonialism and the British empire. Dozens of articles have been published against Project Spire, as the fund is known in the church, many by Biggar and people who share similar views, in publications including the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Times. Lam has led opposition in the House of Commons, asking questions of ministers and in December coordinating a letter from 27 MPs and peers to the incoming archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, accusing the church of “legally dubious vanity projects”. The media blitz has paid off so far, paralysing the church and stalling the fund well beyond its planned launch date of 2024. The church admitted in July it also faces a legal challenge – which could add years more delay. Yet little attention has been paid to the lobbying campaign against Project Spire – and how it has become a cause célèbre within the broader rightwing ecosystem. The Guardian can reveal how some of Britain’s wealthiest financiers, including Sir Paul Marshall, are linked to the man at the heart of the campaign to kill the church’s fund. The multimillionaire co-founder of the hedge fund Marshall Wace has given Biggar and his movement a powerful platform via his stable of media outlets, which spans the Spectator magazine, the broadcaster GB News and the comment website UnHerd. A devout Christian, Marshall also funded several rightwing lobbying groups and organisations linked to Biggar to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. It all appears part of the libertarian financier’s significant efforts to reshape the Church of England – and wider society – in line with his own worldview. * * * A moral reckoning In 2007 Dr Rowan Williams, the then archbishop of Canterbury, set in train a reckoning for one of Britain’s most venerable and staid institutions when he said the church should consider slavery reparations for its historical role in the slave trade. It signalled Lambeth Palace’s determination to atone for those failings – from its distant past to the present day. His successor, Justin Welby, reaffirmed that commitment. “I’m ashamed of our history and I’m ashamed of our failure,” said Welby, a former oil executive turned priest, in 2020. “There is no doubt when we look at our own church that we are still deeply institutionally racist.” In 2019, the church commissioners ordered research into the endowment fund’s origins and links to the slave trade. Its initial findings, published in 2022, revealed the funds partly originated in Queen Anne’s Bounty. Queen Anne’s Bounty, which was founded in 1704, invested significant sums in the South Sea Company, which traded in enslaved people – trafficking about 34,000 enslaved Africans. The South Sea Company also received numerous benefactions from individuals such as the slave trader Edward Colston, who were linked to, or who profited from, transatlantic chattel slavery and the plantation economy. Subsequent work by historians on the newly digitised Register of British Slave Traders has revealed how C of E clergymen financed the Royal African Company (RAC), which trafficked more African men, women and children than any other single organisation in the history of the slave trade. In January 2023 the commissioners published a 25-page report on the endowment fund’s links to the slave trade, employing forensic accountants at Grant Thornton. It declared its intent to set up a £100m fund to invest and generate returns to support communities most affected by African chattel enslavement. Money would come from the church’s endowment, now valued at £11.6bn. An independent oversight group was formed to steer the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice, which the commissioners hoped would attract external investment to grow to a £1bn pot. “It is now time to take action to address our shameful past,” said Welby. Bishop Rosemarie Mallett, the chair of the oversight group, said: “We believe that, like the mustard seed of the parable, the fund will grow from small beginnings towards an expansive future, inspiring imitation and constructive atonement for enduring evils.” It was part of a wider examination into Britain’s links to slavery: the statue of Colston had been toppled into Bristol harbour in 2020, and institutions from the Bank of England and insurance market Lloyd’s of London to the royal family were delving into their past. But the church was not ready for the backlash that the fund would provoke. “The church commissioners always anticipated pushback,” said a source connected to Project Spire. “But it was unprepared for the intensity and persistence of the campaign waged by critics and media associated with wealthy City hedge fund executives.” * * * ‘Wokery is a Christian heresy’ Among the first opponents was a Church of England vicar who appeared on GB News days after the fund was announced in January 2023, to say it would put parishioners off donating to the church. “We keep hearing that there is no money left,” he said. “And now suddenly, they’ve found £100m down the back of the sofa, to pay for this. You can imagine how I felt.” A torrent of similar views has followed, with significant coverage in media organisations that are owned or backed by Marshall. The Spectator, which Marshall bought in 2024 for £100m, has hosted repeated criticism, including one piece by Biggar entitled “Wokery is a Christian heresy”, and another by its assistant editor Madeleine Grant, which described the fund as “deeply unpopular, based on questionable history and law”. GB News, the TV channel that Marshall co-owns with the Dubai-based fund Legatum, hosted Biggar for an interview in which he labelled the C of E’s plan “completely irrational and wilful self-flagellation”. Biggar, the former regius professor of moral theology at the University of Oxford, has been at pains to state that “racial prejudice is wrong”, and slavery is “abhorrent”. But his criticism of Project Spire has been unrelenting. UnHerd, the commentary website Marshall co-founded in 2017 with former Times journalist Tim Montgomerie, has run pieces with headlines such as “The Church of England’s reparations plan is unchristian”. Marshall’s son, Winston Marshall, has hosted Biggar twice on his YouTube show, with episodes such as “The Inconvenient Truth About Reparations and the Slave Trade”. Other rightwing publications and organisations have also weighed in. The Critic, a magazine founded by the hedge fund tycoon and Brexit backer Jeremy Hosking, has run seven articles critical of Project Spire, including by Biggar and Lam. None have been supportive. In 2025 Policy Exchange, the right-of-centre thinktank, published a 58-page paper titled The Case Against Reparations: Why the Church Commissioners for England Must Think Again. Again, Biggar was one of the authors. Critics claim parishioners are similarly opposed to Project Spire, citing a poll of 500 churchgoers by Merlin Strategy that received widespread coverage in January. An initial story in the Sunday Telegraph reported a key finding: that 61% might withhold donations if the fund went ahead and money was “unavailable for the support of parishes”. The story was widely followed up, including by the Daily Mail and BBC. But the coverage failed to mention the results of another similar question in the poll: “If the national church decided to commit £100m of its endowment to slavery-related ‘reparative justice’, would this increase or decrease the amount you would normally con[tribute?]” This time 61% said they would either maintain or increase their contributions, compared with 34% who said they would reduce their contributions. Nor did the stories mention who paid for and commissioned the poll: Biggar. Merlin said it sent the results of the poll to Biggar but had no further involvement in its dissemination. Biggar declined to answer questions about the poll. The Guardian understands the Telegraph story was based on a press release sent by Lam that omitted details including Biggar’s involvement and the finding that 61% would maintain or increase their donations. Lam did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The church has said money for Project Spire will not be diverted from parishes, and that funding for churches and clergy has risen by 36% to £1.6bn for its current three-year period, versus the prior period. * * * Financial links Marshall, who was a substantial donor to the Brexit campaign, has become one of Britain’s most prolific philanthropists. Armed with almost £490m in assets, the Sequoia Trust, a charitable trust he supports and chairs, backs a range of causes close to his heart, including in the Church of England. The Guardian recently revealed how he has given at least £13m to Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), an evangelical church in Knightsbridge in central London that seeded the popular Alpha course, and the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT), via Sequoia, between 2018 and 2025. He also provides significant support to organisations where Biggar is heavily involved, many of which are on the frontline of the culture wars. In May last year the hedge fund tycoon delivered a 48-minute lecture at the University of Oxford on his reflections as an “accidental media owner”. The event was organised by a little-known charity, the Pharos Foundation, which Biggar co-founded in 2023 and of which he is a trustee. It funds the work of young academics “pursuing civilisational or heterodox research in a climate of free inquiry”. Biggar founded Pharos with another academic, Prof David Abulafia, and the fund manager and Conservative party donor Neil Record. Record has described Pharos as part of a “resistance movement” in academia, fighting back against the “cancellation” of debate around subjects such as “DEI/EDI; climate change; the genetic role in intelligence; trans rights; and colonial history”. Pharos are “innovators and disruptors, and you fight the fight for freedom”, Marshall told the Oxford audience. “Therefore you do everything I like and want to support”. Accounts for Pharos show that Sequoia gave it £700,000 in 2024 and 2025. At least 10 Marshall Fellows appear on Pharos’s website, studying subjects including the British empire and ancient Greece. Biggar, who is a paid “fundraising ambassador” for Pharos, declined to say how much he receives for the role. Another prominent City figure, George Robinson, the co-founder of the hedge fund Sloane Robinson and a Conservative party donor, is also a trustee of Pharos, and charitable trusts linked to him have given it at least £500,000. Robinson said he was “not aware” of the campaign against Project Spire and is not involved. He said that Biggar’s opposition to the church’s fund was done in a personal capacity and “has nothing to do with Pharos, which is an educational charity”. Biggar was also a speaker at the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) conference in London, which brought together rightwing voices from across the globe. Marshall funded the launch of Arc in 2023 with a £1m donation, followed by £2m last year, and he co-owns it with Legatum. Biggar is a director of a subsidiary, Arc Research, for which he said he receives no payment. Sequoia also gave £890,000 to Policy Exchange between 2020 and 2023. * * * Culture warriors Biggar was involved in a similar storm that engulfed another British institution several years ago. In 2020 the National Trust published a 115-page report that unravelled its properties’ links to slavery and colonialism. Biggar was reportedly the inspiration for a lobbying group called Restore Trust which was set up to oppose the charity’s so-called “wokeness”. Pharos backer Record was also linked to Restore Trust, appearing on its “meet the team” page until his resignation in 2024. Record, a veteran City currency trader, is also a prominent backer of anti-net zero organisations, chairing Net Zero Watch. Biggar mentored James Orr, the influential Christian academic and former adviser to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who was recently caught in a funding scandal. Orr told a Jordan Peterson podcast in 2021 that they spent a “few happy years” together at the University of Oxford’s McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life, which Biggar founded and Orr joined in 2014. Biggar also has links to the hard-right party Restore Britain. It cited Biggar’s writing on rights and the legal system in a 2025 paper justifying its flagship policy of mass deportations. He was among the people thanked in the acknowledgments “for trusty friendship or helpful conversations”. Biggar said that he has “no formal relationship” with Restore and is a member of the Conservative party. Biggar has written repeatedly for the website History Reclaimed. It was founded by academics including Robert Tombs in 2021. Tombs said that it “exists to correct historical errors and falsehoods, and that is why we criticise Project Spire”. History Reclaimed says none of its authors are paid and it receives “no financial support from any political party or organisation”. * * * Legal quagmire Uncertainty now shrouds the fund. Mullally has reaffirmed the church’s commitment to it, including on a trip to Ghana in July when she expressed “lament” for the Church of England’s involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery. Members of the church’s General Synod, who gathered in York in July, heard that commissioners had faced “some of the most vile abuse and correspondence” over Project Spire. The threat of a judicial review has further delayed an application to the Charity Commission to establish the fund in a new arm’s-length body. No further details were given on the legal threat, but the Guardian understands it is being led by Bijan Omrani, a Daily Telegraph columnist and barrister, who has repeatedly criticised Project Spire. It is understood to centre on the church commissioners’ authority to disburse the money and whether it corresponds with its duty to support the Church of England and its parishes, and whether it allows the commissioners to spend its funds abroad. Biggar said he is not involved in the legal challenge. Biggar said: “Given the universality of slave-trade and slavery – especially among Africans – up until the 19th century some Anglican and British involvement is unremarkable. What is remarkable was the unprecedented campaign to abolish both, led by evangelical Anglicans from the 1780s. Project Spire tears the Church of England’s role out of its historical context, exaggerates its guilt, and ignores its abolitionist leadership.” Paul Marshall said: “I am not funding the anti-Spire campaign but I would be happy to do so. I believe the reparations project is naive and ill-judged and that the money would be better spent looking after the needs of the global Anglican Communion, including the many parishes in the UK struggling to make ends meet. And I think the majority of churchgoers would agree with that.” Winston Marshall, Record, Hosking, Orr, Omrani, Policy Exchange and the Pharos Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. A C of E spokesperson said: “Addressing our historic links to African chattel enslavement is an act of Christian repentance, responsible investment and credible witness.”

After two tragic incidents in months does safety at English zoos need a rethink?

On a busy Saturday afternoon at a zoo in Yorkshire, visitors looked on in horror as a man climbed into a tiger habitat, minutes after posing for a photograph beside it. Eyewitnesses said he scaled a metre-high viewing barrier, before dropping into the enclosure below, overpowering a woman who tried to pull him back. The resident 30-stone Siberian tiger, named Altai, was seen pawing at the man, who was dragged away, and later declared dead at the scene. Yorkshire Wildlife Park remained closed on Monday, while a City of Doncaster council spokesperson said the local authority had launched a health and safety investigation into the matter. It marked the second serious incident at a UK zoo in just a few months. In June, a three-year-old boy was seriously injured after being attacked by one or more crocodiles when he ended up in the enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. But experts have said that recent events do not reflect on zoo practices, and may instead point to issues with human behaviour, or mental health or support services. “These were two really terrible events, but rather than being about zoos themselves, I wonder whether they could reflect wider issues in society,” said Amy Dickman, professor of wildlife conservation and the director of WildCRU at the University of Oxford. “Given how many millions of zoo visits there are in a year, these are vanishingly rare instances, although of course that doesn’t negate how deeply tragic they are when they occur,” Dickman, an expert in big cat conservation, added. “I would not conclude that there was a major issue with zoo safety – the harsh reality is that it is virtually impossible for zoos to stop people who are very determined to breach safety measures.” In the Cambridgeshire incident, the boy was allegedly thrown into the crocodile enclosure. Police arrested a 30-year-old man from Norfolk on suspicion of attempted murder at the time of the incident, and police said he was “assessed as not being fit for interview”. This week, a spokesperson for Cambridgeshire police said the investigation was still under way and the suspect had been bailed until 17 December. “Two incidents have happened in the last few months, which is obviously really upsetting and distressing for the sector, but they are actually very, very rare,” Jo Judge, the chief executive at British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA), said. There are hundreds of zoos, aquariums and animal attractions in the UK, and about 32 million people visit BIAZA member zoos and aquariums across Britain and Ireland every year. “The industry has already put in place so many safety measures that it is not being seen as a rising problem or something that we’re not doing enough about. These are just very unusual and very rare incidences,” she added. “It is unbelievable that these two incidents have happened so closely together.” Dickman said that because animals kept in enclosures do not come into contact with humans as those in the wild may do, “for someone to walk into that environment is probably far more dangerous, ironically, than if you were out in the wild with animals that were used to navigating those spaces alongside people.” She said she had “never visited a zoo in the UK and thought ‘this is dangerous’,” adding there was “layer upon layer of protection against people interacting with dangerous animals” and that “you do have to do it very intentionally”. All zoos in the UK must be licensed and follow strict safety procedures to protect their animals and human staff and visitors, with guidelines in place for zoo enclosures, including for sizing and perimeter fences. “There is no accidental falling into a category 1A dangerous animal enclosure, it just doesn’t happen – it’s not designed that way,” said Campbell Murn, a lecturer in conservation science at University of Reading, who until recently sat on Defra’s Zoos expert committee. Category 1A refers to a high-risk species kept in zoos that is capable of causing a human fatality, and includes rhinos, elephants, great apes and big cats. “In terms of preventing intentional entry to enclosures, there’s locks, there’s barriers,” he added. “But short of putting an electric fence [up], which of course has its own health and safety considerations, the protocol remains patrolling staff keeping an eye out for unusual behaviour. “It’s simply not possible though, at an attraction like Yorkshire Wildlife Park that gets hundreds of thousands – if not over a million – visitors a year to keep an eye on everybody all the time.” He said safety had to be balanced against visitor experience, so zoo-goers don’t get “a sense of walking into an electrified fence fortress where they can’t do anything other than look through heavy steel bars”, and used the analogy of “a determined thief”. “If a determined thief wants to get in your house, they’re going to get in your house,” he said. “You can mitigate risk to a certain point but there’s sometimes no stopping events from happening, unfortunately.” Paul Rose, a senior lecturer in psychology (animal behaviour) at the University of Exeter, also said that “public behaviour can be unpredictable, as we all know”. “There will be mitigation in place, such as high fencing, standoff barriers, signage and explanation and a code of conduct for how to behave at the zoo (and for visitors to take responsibility for their actions),” he said. “Risk assessments will also be undertaken regularly.” Following Saturday’s incident, he said he imagined that “lessons will be learned regarding how zoos try to manage the behaviour of the public and how they instruct visitors to conduct themselves in and around enclosures”. “The majority of visitors behave in a way respectful of the animal and environment at the zoo, but there is always a risk of rogue or unusual behaviour, and this will continue to be risk assessed and part of zoo personnel training,” he added. Experts did say they had some concerns about the role the internet and social media may play in encouraging people to interact with wild animals. Judge said: “We do unfortunately see on social media quite often videos of people, mostly in other countries, entering the enclosures with some of these animals, and that is something that we do not support at all.” “They are dangerous wild animals and they should be respected as such,” she added, but said it wasn’t something UK zoos are “hugely concerned about” as they “will make it very, very clear that these are dangerous animals”. But Dickman said that online content was definitely of concern. “Though it may not have been a factor here, it is worrying how many videos exist online of people playing around with tigers and lions,” she added. “AI has made that even worse, and the illusion that people should have those interactions with wild, dangerous animals can be really damaging.”

Man rescued from cave on Sardinia after being trapped by rockslide for 26 hours

A 31-year-old man has been pulled alive from a cave on the Italian island of Sardinia after being trapped roughly 10 metres below ground for 26 hours following a rockslide. In a huge and complex operation, rescuers worked non-stop after Luca Olmetto became trapped in the Gorroppeddu cave in the rugged Urzulei mountain range in central-eastern Sardinia on Sunday afternoon. He had been exploring the cave with his girlfriend, who was a few metres behind him and narrowly missed the collapse, which completely blocked the entrance to the cave. She managed to escape unharmed and immediately raised the alarm. Rescuers managed to reach Olmetto, who was conscious and responsive throughout the operation, by late Monday afternoon after manually removing rubble and earth blocking a narrow passage. They then proceeded with the delicate operation of removing the large amounts of debris that covered the caver before extracting him from the cavity. According to Rai News, Olmetto was brought to the surface just after 6pm CET and stabilised by medical staff before being airlifted to hospital. About 48 experts from Sardinia’s Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps and 30 firefighters, as well as civil protection staff, were involved in the rescue operation. A helicopter also provided materials and equipment needed to make the site secure. In a message posted on social media, the council of Codrongianos, the town in north-west Sardinia where Olmetto is from, wrote that the past 24 hours were filled with “great anxiety for the entire community”. “We are closely monitoring the situation and are hoping for good news soon,” the council said. “Our thoughts are with Luca and his family, and we extend our deepest gratitude to all the rescuers working tirelessly to bring him to safety. Hang in there, Luca – all of Codrongianos is with you.” The Gorroppeddu cave is a largely unexplored natural cavity. In a similar incident in December 2024, another explorer, Ottavia Piana, 32, became trapped while exploring a cave in the Bueno Fonteno caves close to Bergamo in northern Italy. She remained underground at roughly 600 metres for 75 hours before being freed. Piana suffered injuries including fractured vertebrae, ribs and facial bones. Her high profile rescue involved 160 specialists.

Zelenskyy says ‘increasingly clear’ Russia does not want energy ceasefire after strikes on energy facilities – as it happened

⁠Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ⁠it ⁠was “increasingly clear” that Russia ⁠was unwilling to accept a US-proposed ⁠ceasefire on ‌energy ‌strikes, as Moscow hit ‌six Ukrainian energy facilities on Monday. “This is ‌what happens when Russia sees the prospect of higher revenues ⁠for its war machine,” he wrote in a ‌post on X. German chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Russia would only negotiate “seriously” under pressure, days after president Donald Trump announced a temporary easing of US sanctions on Russian diesel. “For Germany and for Europe, such a decision is out of the question,” said Merz, referring to the US-Russia diesel deal. Nato should signal its “red lines” to Russia over sabotage attacks in Europe, the alliance’s top military commander said. “It’s important that allies continue to consult, think about how we might respond, and make sure that we message clearly and concisely to the Russians where our red lines are,” Nato commander Alexus Grynkewich said in Warsaw. Russia ⁠carried out drone strikes on various targets ⁠in Ukraine on Monday, including on vessels ⁠carrying military cargo, Russia’s ‌defence ‌ministry said. The ministry said ‌it had struck three cargo vessels which it said were being used ‌to transport military cargo to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports - two bound for Odesa and one ⁠heading to Mykolaiv. A 13-year-old girl was among three people killed in a Russian strike on a house near the frontline city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Monday, the authorities said. The head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin, said a house in the Cherkaske area was hit with cluster munitions, accusing Russia of “a deliberate attempt” to maximise civilian casualties. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has said Russia rejects the idea of a temporary ceasefire, telling reporters that Moscow wanted a long-term peace deal instead. “In the Kremlin, both ‌President Putin and officials at other levels have repeatedly stated that we do not want a ceasefire,” said Peskov. “We want long-term peace and are prepared to do everything possible ⁠to achieve it.“ Ukraine has passed legislation protecting the rights of national minorities, in a move expected to remove a major stumbling block to the country’s EU ambitions. Hungary had been blocking the opening of so-called negotiation “clusters” – policy areas with which EU candidates must align their laws – accusing Kyiv of failing to protect the rights of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority. European ⁠Union foreign ministers have ⁠a ⁠clear understanding that now is ⁠not the moment to ease ⁠pressure on Russia, ‌Kaja ‌Kallas, the bloc’s ‌foreign policy chief, told reporters on Monday. “Pressure on Moscow, ‌not concessions, is the fastest way to end the war,” ⁠she said following a gathering of European foreign ministers in ‌Luxembourg. EU countries back barring entry to Russians who fought in Ukraine, but need to work out how to implement the measure, Kallas added. “The political agreement is there. We just need to work out the technicalities,” she said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers. Russia presents a long-term threat to Europe regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said. Warning that Moscow wanted to upend Europe’s international order, Sina Sellen, president of the BfV, said Russian-orchestrated attacks would “continue to come”. France’s high school students will stage new protests on Tuesday, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency is reporting. A government source told journalists last week that the cost for damage caused by the demonstrations, which have shaken an unpopular government trying to reduce a ballooning budget deficit, was already “at least 30 million euros”. An “unprecedented” cyber-attack is behind the shutdown of refrigerator units in multiple French supermarkets, according to the chief executive of Cooperative U, one of the chains affected. At least 150 Intermarche shops were targeted, along with almost 100 Cooperative U outlets, AFP reports. Paris prosecutors confirmed the attack, with media reporting that hackers were “managing to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems in numerous stores.”

Zelenskyy vows to retaliate if Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid continue

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to respond to Russia’s continuing attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as European leaders rally around Kyiv amid a feud with Donald Trump over Ukraine’s strikes on oil refineries. Speaking to a gathering of European security officials in Warsaw on Monday, the Ukrainian president said Kyiv would retaliate if strikes on its power grid continued: “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will respond.” On Sunday, Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between Kyiv and Moscow that Zelenskyy said neither side had agreed to. On Monday, Zelenskyy said he was “surprised” by the post, which went online while Kyiv was being attacked by Russian Shahed drones. Russia then launched a “targeted attack” on a Kharkiv power station hours later, as much of Kyiv was plunged into darkness. “It’s clear that Putin does not read Truth Social,” Zelenskyy said. Russia bombed six energy facilities on Monday, injuring 33 people, the Ukrainian president said. “It is becoming increasingly clear that Russia does not want to agree to the energy ceasefire proposed by the US and intends to continue its terrorist air attacks against our communities,” he added. Zelenskyy also suggested that Ukraine’s recent counter-strikes on datacentres belonging to the Russian technology company Yandex had reduced the number of bots posting messages in Europe and the US. “It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social platforms. There was less hate, less division and fewer provocations,” he said. The Kremlin refused to say on Monday whether it agreed with Trump’s Truth Social post, which claimed a ceasefire was “effective immediately”. It also rejected Zelenskyy’s proposal that Russia stop bombing for 60 days so Ukraine could hold a presidential election. Moscow wanted an overall peace deal first, it said, which, for the Kremlin, means Kyiv’s capitulation. The fast-moving row between Washington and Kyiv began on Friday, when Trump announced he was lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports. He said the move would reduce global and domestic fuel prices before next month’s US midterm elections. Both Republican and Democratic politicians have criticised the move, pointing out that the deal violates a US law that blocks Russian energy imports. On Monday Trump defended it. “I made the right choice for the American People – ALWAYS, AMERICA FIRST!” he wrote in a social media post. Earlier a furious Zelenskyy called the decision “weak” and said it would generate “billions” in extra revenue for Putin, enabling him to wage war “even more intensely”. An equally irate Trump said Zelenskyy should “damn well stop” hitting Russian refineries. Ukraine needed a “new leader”, he said on Saturday. Ukraine has said it is ready to negotiate an energy ceasefire that would take the pressure off its electricity grid before the winter. European leaders have voiced support for Kyiv in its dispute with Washington, saying Russia was responsible for the continuing strikes on energy infrastructure in both countries. “We welcome the energy ceasefire when it holds,” the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said at a meeting of European foreign ministers on Monday. “We haven’t yet seen that also Russia will stick to it.” Ministers from the Baltic states criticised a US decision to lift sanctions on imports of Russian diesel, which had been blocked as part of punishment for Putin launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “This deal doesn’t help, neither the crisis of the oil products, nor the unity within the transatlantic community when it concerns Russia,” said Lithuania’s foreign minister, Keʂtutis Budrys. “And it is not the European way. Our way is to increase pressure because we already see how it works.” Russia has increased its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, using jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles ahead of the cold winter months, leading to blackouts and water shortages far earlier in the season than has been usual during the war. Trump’s proposal was for both sides to halt strikes on oil refineries but Kallas said that deal favoured Russia, which has far more refineries. The US president has blamed the high price of diesel on Ukraine’s attacks, rather than the global shock to energy markets from the US war in Iran and the subsequent closure of the strait of Hormuz. According to the Financial Times, the US ⁠has threatened ⁠to stop the procurement ⁠system that provides ⁠Ukraine with ‌weapons, paid for by its European allies. The White House has also said it could turn off intelligence sharing unless Kyiv halts its ‌long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries. The Kyiv Independent newspaper said Ukraine’s commander in chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi, had received a call from the US telling him to stop bombing. “They called all the top military officials with threats,” a Ukrainian official told the newspaper. Ben Hodges, the former head of US forces in Europe, described the energy ceasefire “deal” as a fantasy and “a classic ‘Trumpian’ announcement of something not based on any facts.” “No one should be misled,” he said, adding that Russia “never adheres to any agreements unless forced to do so”. He urged Ukraine’s military to ignore Trump and “ramp up” their attacks on Russian oil and gas complexes. “Clearly, this is having a very significant effect. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be hearing all this pressure from the Kremlin on the White House demanding that it stop. Of course, it is having a huge impact.”

Indian opposition figures lead march to police barricades around supreme court

Delhi police have again obstructed protests in India’s capital as thousands of people returned to the streets, led by opposition leaders, to demand the resignation of the election commissioner. After mass unrest in the capital over the weekend, when thousands were detained and harassed by police as they attempted to take part in a protest led by the gen Z Cockroach movement, on Monday the main opposition leaders led another procession through Delhi, this time to the supreme court. The leader of India’s opposition alliance, Rahul Gandhi, alongside other opposition figures and student groups, had declared their intention to march to the court and submit a petition calling for India’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, to step down. Kumar has become a deeply controversial figure for his role in an exercise to verify and “purify” India’s electoral rolls, which has led to more than 130m names – more than the population of Japan – being deleted from voter lists since last year. Opposition parties and civil society groups allege Kumar implemented this special intensive revision (SIR) to help entrench the power of Narendra Modi’s government and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). Muslim voters and other minorities who are traditionally not BJP voters have allegedly been disproportionately affected by the deletions. The election commission has denied favouring any party and said wrongly deleted ‌voters could re-enrol, while the BJP has accused its rivals of trying to undermine democracy by questioning legitimate electoral processes. Several metro stations were closed on Monday in central Delhi and police barricades prevented thousands of protesters getting within 600m of the supreme court, forcing them to turn back. However, lawyers confirmed they had submitted the petition on Gandhi’s behalf and by late evening, Gandhi had broken through the barricades and reached the court gates. In a press conference before the march, Gandhi reiterated his allegation that the Modi government was using the commission to commit “vote chori” (cheating) and accused Kumar of being a “thief”. Gandhi expressed support for the mass uprising of young people, led by the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) and student groups, who had tried to protest over the weekend but were met with police brutality and mass detentions. “Till the constitution is upheld, till the chief election commissioner is removed, till the system of elections is revamped, till justice is served for India, the youth won’t stop,” he said. The SIR and calls for Kumar’s resignation have galvanised support for beleaguered opposition parties, who are seen to have flailed in the face of the BJP’s electoral power. Gandhi was detained twice last week after the police refused to let him and other opposition leaders reach Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in central Delhi. Mahua Moitra, an opposition MP who was marching after being detained last week, alleged that in her constituency in West Bengal more than 10,000 voters had been unjustly removed from the electoral rolls. “There’s no going back now. People know that their votes have been stolen and this government is finished,” Moitra said. “The police can detain us, they can use brute force and crack our skulls, but we are not going to get off the streets until Gyanesh Kumar resigns and this government is gone. If we don’t stand up to this, then there will be nothing left of our country.” Moitra accused the supreme court of helping to validate the SIR process and disenfranchise millions of Indians. “When the history of this dark chapter of India is written, the supreme court will be the most disgraced,” she said. “It was the supreme court who put a stamp of approval on every illegality of this government.” Gandhi has spent months accusing the BJP of fraudulently influencing elections, but his claims have been largely ignored. The issue exploded last month after the Indian Express newspaper reported multiple irregularities in the SIR process that had been pushed through by Kumar. The protests are likely to continue this week. On Monday, leaders of the CJP approached the Delhi police to seek a date to be allowed to hold a protest without obstruction. They said that if the police refused to comply, their supporters would take to the streets again.

Nobel Prize for economics awarded to Hall and Woodford for work on ‘smoothing’ crises

Two US economists have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize for their work developing models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilise their countries, avoiding long recessions and runaway inflation. Robert Hall of Stanford University, California, and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, New York, were recognised for developing the “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, giving policymakers better tools to smooth out the peaks and troughs of their economies. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said it was recognising the pair for generating “a paradigm shift in stabilisation policy”, awarding them the prize worth a combined $1.2m (£900,000). “New Keynesian models, a result of their research, allow us to explain and quantify how stabilisation policy affects business cycles and are now used by central banks and finance ministries around the world,” the academy said. These models improved on John Maynard Keynes’s stabilisation models, which struggled to handle the impact of the oil shock in the 1970s, when countries suffered high inflation, weak growth and high unemployment at the same time. Hall and Woodford demonstrated how traditional models could be reconstructed, based on how individual households and businesses collectively affect an economy through their actions. Hall’s work was based on forward-looking consumer behaviour rather than the more mechanical rules of thumb used by Keynes, which linked key variables such as inflation, unemployment and gross domestic product (GDP). Woodford built on this work to create the New Keynesian model, a full macroeconomic stabilisation framework that is the main tool for policymakers now. This model was used after the 2008 financial crisis by policymakers as they steered the global economy away from the risk of a second great depression. “The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world. With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume,” John Hassler, the chair of the committee for the economics prize, said. Hall and Woodford’s work also led to the development of forward guidance, where central bankers communicate where they expect interest rates to be in the future. That became an important tool after the 2008 financial crisis, and the Covid pandemic, when interest rates were cut to record lows. Forward guidance has had its critics, though – the current chair of the US Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, has argued it should only have a “limited and circumscribed” role in normal times, to avoid “creating ambiguity in the name of clarity”. And in 2014, the then Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, was labelled an “unreliable boyfriend” for dropping hints over interest rate rises that never came to pass. Woodford said he was “elated”. “It’s a tremendous honour. It’s a surprise but I’m feeling very good about it,” he told reporters in Stockholm by phone after receiving the news. The Columbia University president, Jennifer L Mnookin, said: “I offer my deepest congratulations to Michael Woodford on this tremendous honour. “What a tribute to his groundbreaking work alongside Robert E Hall that has fundamentally reshaped the theoretical foundations of stabilisation policy and provided us with the tools to navigate economic upturns and downturns more effectively.” Hall is also known for coining the idea that US economists can be divided into freshwater and saltwater varieties. The fresh water group, who tend to be based at inland universities located near the Great Lakes, such as the University of Chicago, believe in free markets, neoclassical price theory, rational expectations and monetarism. Salt water economists, though, cluster at coastal universities, such as Harvard, MIT, UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, UCLA and Columbia. They tend to be Keynesians and New Keynesians, believing that governments and central banks can affect demand in their economies. The economics Nobel prize is not one of the five created by Alfred Nobel. Instead, it was invented by Sweden’s central bank, and is known as the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.