The Guardian - 06.09.2019

Section:GDN 1N PaGe:31 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 21:01 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

Friday 6 September 2019 The Guardian •

National^31

Hong Kong pulls

out of arms fair

after teargas row

McCartney ‘starting to think

about’ playing at Glastonbury

PA Media

Sir Paul McCartney has said he is
“starting to think about” performing
at Glastonbury next year – the Somer-
set festival’s 50th anniversary.
McCartney, 77, told BBC Radio 2:
“People are saying that it will be good
if I did it, so I’m starting to think about
whether I can or whether it would be
a good thing. My kids are saying ‘Dad,
we’ve got to talk about Glastonbury,’
and I think I know what they mean.”
He told the Zoe Ball Breakfast show :
“We played there quite a long time ago
so maybe it is time to go back. I don’t
know. I’d have to put a few things in

Dan Sabbagh

Hong Kong is no longer sending a del-

egation to next week’s Defence and

Security Equipment International

(DSEI) arms fair in London, a month

after it emerged that the UK govern-

ment had invited representatives from

the riot-hit territory to visit.

The decision to pull out was con-

fi rmed in a parliamentary answer by

Graham Stuart, a junior international

trade minister, to a question from

the Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft after

a report in the Guardian last month.

career from his time in the Beatles to

Wings and his solo material.

His comments come after the Glas-

tonbury festival founder, Michael

Eavis, replied “hopefully for the 50th”

when asked by BBC Somerset if McCa-

rtney would play. Eavis added: “But

don’t make a big thing of it, will you?”

McCartney also joked about his

music on the audio recording of his

new children’s book, Hey Grandude!

Asked if the audio book, which he

narrates, features any of his music, he

replied: “There is because in one of

the stories I just happened to put in:

‘Grandude pulls out his trusty guitar.’

“So when I was doing the audio

book, I said: ‘Oh, you’re going to want

a bit of trusty guitar, aren’t you?’ And

the producer said yes.

“So I made up something on the

spot. It was very simple but it’s a little

bit of music. I think they’ll promote it

more than it warrants – ‘new original

music by Paul McCartney’ – so beware.”

Mind the gap: growth survey highlights

divide between London and regions

Phillip Inman

London’s economy has outstripped
all other English regions with a 19%
surge in growth since 2012, highlight-
ing the divide between the capital and
the rest of England.
The Offi ce for National Statistics
underlined London’s disproportionate
economic heft in its fi rst set of regional
GDP fi gures for England and Wales ,
which showed the north-east of Eng-
land with the slowest growth over the
same period, at 5.9%. The West Mid-
lands economy, home to the UK’s
biggest car maker Jaguar Land Rover,
came second to London after expand-
ing 16.5% over six years from 2012.
The fi gures are likely to reinforce
calls for the government to re focus on
its industrial strategy, which is strug-
gling for impetus as Whitehall pours
resources into Brexit.
Carys Roberts , the chief econo-
mist at the IPPR think tank and head
of the Centre for Economic Justice,
said: “The fact that growth from all
regions of England has consistently
lagged behind that from London is
a clear indicator that something is
wrong in the economy. Such regional
inequalities hold back productivity,
wages and people’s standard of living.
“We need a new Industrial Strategy
Act setting out clear goals that focus on
putting this right. We should be build-
ing hi -tech industrial clusters around
our many world-leading research-
based universities. And we should set
up a new national investment bank to
invest in infrastructure, innovation
and business growth across England.”
However, the ONS fi gures, com-
piled from about 1.9m VAT returns
supplied by businesses rather than the
traditional GDP method of company
surveys, included quarterly data for
2018 that showed a downturn in Lon-
don’s fortunes. The capital’s economy
showed no growth in the last three
months of 2018, while Wales topped
the table with growth of 0.3%.

A fl agging fi nancial services sector

was largely to blame for London’s zero

growth rate in the fi nal quarter of last

year, having been aff ected by Brexit

uncertainty that has prompted the

loss of thousands of jobs in the capi-

tal’s fi nancial district. According to the

ONS data, London’s fi nancial services

sector has been in recession since the

third quarter of 2017. London’s build-

ing industry has also proved sensitive

to Brexit uncertainty, with a host of

projects mothballed. However, the

downturns in these two key industries

have not reduced the sizeable gap with

other parts of the country.

The worst- aff ected region , accord-

ing to the new figures, was the

south-west, where the economy

shr ank in the last three months of

2018 compared with a year earlier.

The fi gures also show that the east

and south-west of England suff ered

technical recessions, or two successive

quarters of negative growth, last year.

Representatives of the Northern

Powerhouse in Manchester and the

West Midlands’ mayor, Andy Street,

have called for greater powers and

more funds for infrastructure pro-

jects, including the much delayed

and over-budget HS2 railway line,

which is intended to run from Lon-

don to Birmingham, then Manchester

and Leeds. However, the future of HS2

is in doubt after the government con-

fi rmed this week that the fi rst phase of

the line could be delayed by fi ve years

while the cost of the entire route has

risen from £55.7bn to up to £88bn.

The Welsh economy grew in the

second half of 2018, despite fears of

steel works closures and threats to the

livelihoods of Welsh sheep farmers.

Construction was the main driver of

Wales’s economic performance, while

manufacturing output fell.

But it was outstripped in the fi nal

quarter of 2018 by the south-east,

which expanded by 0.8%.

Economists expect the West Mid-

lands to drop back this year as the

dramatic fall in car purchases and

production takes its toll. Much of the

construction boom in Birmingham

and the surrounding area has also

followed government assurances that

HS2 would be operational in the mid-

dle of the next decade.

The car industry represents one of

England’s biggest economic strengths

outside London, with Nissan operat-

ing a key site in Sunderland, Toyota in

Derby, Mini running a plant in Oxford

and Vauxhall operating sites in Elles-

mere Port and Luton.

The ONS said it planned to continue

using VAT data to build a more compre-

hensive picture of economic growth in

the UK, although Scotland and North-

ern Ireland produce their own data,

and use a diff erent methodology.

The north-east has the lowest increase in regional GDP since

2012, with London reporting the highest

10.2

Wales

13.9

East of England

8.2

Yorkshire & the

Humber

5.9

North-east

8.4

South-west

13.2

South-east

16.5

West Midlands

13.2

East Midlands

11.2

North-west

Source: ONS. Note: no data for Scotland and Northern Ireland

Percent change in GDP

18.9

London

▲ Paul McCartney, who last played at

the Glastonbury festival 15 years ago

place. It’s starting to become some

remote kind of possibility. It’s def-

initely not fi xed yet but people are

starting to talk about it.”

He last played the Pyramid Stage

in 2004, delivering a set spanning his

Hong Kong is in the midst of its

worst political crisis since the British

handover of the territory to China in

1997. At least 2,000 rounds of teargas
      have been fi red amid protests against a
      now-abandoned extradition law.
      The DSEI arms fair is the biggest
      in Europe, featuring 1,600 exhibitors
      and more than 40 country pavilions.
      Companies showcase security and
      crowd-control equipment.
      Canisters recovered by protest-
      ers in Hong Kong show that some of
      the CS gas used there was manufac-
      tured in Derby by a British company,
      Chemring. Britain has licensed £9.4m
      of arms sales and security equipment
      to Hong Kong since 2014.
      Eight other countries identifi ed by
      the Foreign Offi ce as a “priority coun-
      try” in its latest annual review of
      human rights and democracy are still
      listed as attending the fair : Saudi Ara-
      bia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Colombia,
      Egypt, Israel, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

▲ Cardiff city centre, bustling as the

Welsh economy grew in the second

half of 2018 – driven by construction

PHOTOGRAPH: MATTHEW HORWOOD/GETTY

£88bn

The estimated cost of the delayed

and over-budget HS2 railway line,

intended to improve regional links

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