British university history tutors often recommend reading a book called The Strange Death of Liberal England. It’s about the 20th-century demise of the once-great British Liberal party. Nowadays we are witnessing a sequel: the strange death of conservative England. The Conservative party, which ruled Britain for more of my life than any other, is currently 12 years in government and resembles a circular firing squad or political death cult, splitting apart like an over-ripe banana. We could begin with the new Conservative leader, but only if we agree that the leader is not Liz Truss, the nominal prime minister.
After just one month, Ms Truss remains in office, not in power, as the figurehead for a zombie government. The real leader of the UK government is the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt. He is virtually unsackable, brought in to save Ms Truss from her own unbelievable errors. Mr Hunt is an estimable figure, calm, successful in business and may salvage the British economy, but no one can save Ms Truss from herself.
She is the most disastrous choice of prime minister in living memory and now inspires neither respect nor fear nor even pity. Rather than waste time considering her shortcomings, we need to understand that the problem is not one failed person, but the failed system that allowed someone manifestly unsuitable to rise to power in the first place.
Some 40 years ago, the elder statesman of the right wing of the British Conservative party, Enoch Powell, remarked that "all political careers end in failure". What is astonishing about Ms Truss is that her career as prime minister began in failure. Even sober editorial writers of The Economist compared her first few days in office to the shelf life of a supermarket lettuce.
Even if Truss remains in Downing Street she will be like a squatter in someone else’s home
But the real blame lies with the Conservative party itself. They created a system that allowed just 81,000 members to decide who should lead their party, and therefore the country, without the other 68 million British people having a say.
For some extraordinary reason, those 81,000 members loved the Truss message that cutting taxes, most notably on the rich, and cutting public spending would, in an injection of free-market fundamentalism, in some miraculous way create "growth, growth, growth".
They swallowed these political platitudes without once asking the most obvious question: do the numbers add up? They don’t. The Conservative party has, therefore, led the UK into crisis after crisis. A British child aged six will have lived under four Conservative prime ministers, five if Ms Truss is forced out soon, as some believe.
The Tories have already inflicted four chancellors on us in four successive months this year. There are plenty of complicated reasons for their incompetent behaviour, but here is one simple one: Brexit.
The decision to leave the EU came because former prime minister David Cameron worried about an upstart anti-European party, UKIP, taking millions of votes in the 2015 UK general election. He thought he could swallow up UKIP, so he offered the 2016 referendum on leaving the EU. Mr Cameron lost the referendum, lost his job as prime minister, and the infection of Brexit and UKIP-style policies rotted the best brains within the Conservative party.
The result was the jovial but incompetent and law-breaking premiership of Boris Johnson, the utterly inept premiership of Ms Truss, and a UK that is poorer and deeply divided. The union of Scotland, Wales and especially Northern Ireland has been undermined. Virtually every economic indicator – trade, economic growth, the falling pound – shows Britain has failed or is underperforming.
Ms Truss proved to be simply the most virulent form of the post-Brexit failure because she relied in government on groups of advisers from right-wing so-called "think tanks" – more like lobby groups – and adopted their free-market fundamentalist ideas, crashing the economy, crashing her career and crashing the Conservative party too.
Perhaps as they survey the wreckage, Conservatives may consider that their party, the party of Margaret Thatcher, once stood for free markets, fiscal prudence and "sound money". In the 2020s, their party now stands for competing egos, empty slogans and incompetence. Still, there is good news.
For the past few years, a sensible conversation about the damage done to the British economy by Brexit has been impossible. Now it is essential. In one of the many pro-Brexit British newspapers, a distinguished columnist finally came around to admitting that leaving the EU has been exactly the kind of disaster that some of us (me included) predicted years ago.
That, at least, is a start. Instead of worrying about the future of Ms Truss – she probably does not have one, even if she remains in Downing Street she will be like a squatter in someone else’s home – what we need to do is begin a grown-up conversation about how to end the self-harm that Brexit has caused. It will not be easy. It is, however, necessary.
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
Graduated from the American University of Sharjah
She is the eldest of three brothers and two sisters
Has helped solve 15 cases of electric shocks
Enjoys travelling, reading and horse riding
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Results
Ashraf Ghani 50.64 per cent
Abdullah Abdullah 39.52 per cent
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 3.85 per cent
Rahmatullah Nabil 1.8 per cent
Pakistan v New Zealand Test series
Pakistan: Sarfraz (c), Hafeez, Imam, Azhar, Sohail, Shafiq, Azam, Saad, Yasir, Asif, Abbas, Hassan, Afridi, Ashraf, Hamza
New Zealand: Williamson (c), Blundell, Boult, De Grandhomme, Henry, Latham, Nicholls, Ajaz, Raval, Sodhi, Somerville, Southee, Taylor, Wagner
Umpires: Bruce Oxerford (AUS) and Ian Gould (ENG); TV umpire: Paul Reiffel (AUS); Match referee: David Boon (AUS)
Tickets and schedule: Entry is free for all spectators. Gates open at 9am. Play commences at 10am
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
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Dunki
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
Bawaal%20
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Joe Root's Test record
Tests: 53; Innings: 98; Not outs: 11; Runs: 4,594; Best score: 254; Average: 52.80; 100s: 11; 50s: 27
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
'Champions'
Director: Manuel Calvo
Stars: Yassir Al Saggaf and Fatima Al Banawi
Rating: 2/5
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
