The Guardian - 08.08.2019

Section:GDN 1N PaGe:2 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 21:06 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian Thursday 8 August 2019

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News and Sport

 Toni Morrison’s stories

shaped me, and made me

tell my own

Afua Hirsch

Page 3

 Deal or no deal:

it’s not really up to

Dominic Cummings

Martin Kettle

Page 4

Society

Cohabiting couples are

the fastest growing family

type, ONS fi gures show

Page 6

Magical response

Why feminists have turned

to witchcraft to fi ght

Donald Trump

Page 4

Cricket

Tim de Lisle on the fi ve

things England can do to

bounce back in the Ashes

Page 36

Chill out!

How cold should it be and

how often should I clean it?

Guide to a perfect fridge

Page 6

Weather

Page 34

Cartoon

Journal, page 5

Cryptic crossword

Back of Journal

Quick crossword

Back of G

NEWSPAPERS

SUPPORT

RECYCLING

The recycled paper content of UK newspapers

in 2017 was 64.6%^

port

es are

ng family

show

he fi ve

an do to

he Ashes

is described by some inside Down-

ing Street as one of “the sensibles”.

But an internal No 10 email shows

Cummings is now styled as “assis-

tant to the prime minister” in charge

of Brexit and domestic policy, while

Lister is downgraded to “chief strate-

gic adviser” responsible for foreign

aff airs, business and security.

A Tory special adviser told the

Guardian Cummings was “absolutely

running the show” and was even more

ruthless and diffi cult to work with than

Theresa May’s former advisers Nick

Timothy and Fiona Hill: “The level of

terror is greater than Priti Patel would

like to exert on the criminal classes. It

is far, far scarier than under Nick Timo-

thy. He is two Fionas plus a Nick rolled

into one. It’s the worst of both worlds

in one person.”

Cummings does have some sup-

porters, including one special adviser

who worked under the last two admin-

istrations, who said: “Dom wants

people who can do the job well, will

actually deliver on the PM’s priorities

and will give honest answers when

there are problems. In the last gov-

ernment you could get fi red simply

Jim Waterson

Media editor

The Guardian’s parent company hit

its break-even target as revenue rose

to £224.5m in the last fi nancial year,

aided by growth in digital revenues

and higher contributions from readers.

Guardian Media Group confi rmed

preliminary fi gures showing its main

Guardian News & Media subsidi-

ary recorded an operational profi t of

£800,.

The accounts also detail the success

of the business’s overseas operations

for the fi rst time. Revenue from adver-

tising and reader contributions at the

online-only Guardian US and Guardian

Australia operations grew to £30.8m in

the last fi nancial year, 14% of GMG’s

global revenues.

This helped the company raise total

revenues 3% to £224.5m , with a record

163 m unique browsers and 1.35bn page

views in March. The Guardian now

has 655,000 regular paying support-

ers with an additional 300,000 one-off

contributors in the past 12 months.

GMG is owned by the not-for-profi t

Scott Trust, which has an endow-

ment of £1bn built up through past

investments in companies such as

AutoTrader. The return on this invest-

ment allows it to subsidise its news

operations by up to £30m a year while

guaranteeing its independence.

Although income from print oper-

ations remains a signifi cant part of

the business, largely due to the cover

price , the majority of income now

comes from digital operations. UK

print advertising accounts for just

8% of total income, in stark contrast

to many rival news organisations

that remain wedded to revenue from

newspaper advertising and are being

hit hard by the decline in circulations.

GMG’s chief executive, David Pem-

sel, said: “Achieving a third successive

year of revenue growth and meeting

our break-even target for GNM is a

tribute to everyone within our organ-

isation. GNM has been transformed

in the last three years into a more

reader-funded, more digital and more

international business.”

To hit its fi nancial targets and cut

costs, GMG paid out £4.3m in redun-

dancy payments in the last fi nancial

year, aided by a voluntary redundancy

scheme under which the total head-

count fe ll from 1,475 to 1,437 across

editorial, sales and support divisions.

Pemsel was the highest-paid direc-

tor , earning a total pay package of

£706,000. Directors did not receive

bonuses for hitting the break-even

target although the three leading

directors, whose income has remained

largely static during the implementa-

tion of the turnaround plan, have now

had their remuneration reviewed and

will receive a 5% increase in their base

salary for the next fi nancial year, in

line with other Guardian staff.

Last year GMG took a financial

hit relating to the closure of its own

printing sites as part of the decision

to switch to a tabloid format and

outsource production of the paper,

enabling it to cut costs in the long term.

because someone else was having a

bad day.” But some Conservative MPs

told the Guardian they were already

very worried about the amount of

power Cummings had accumulated

so quickly as an unelected political

appointment. One centrist Tory MP

said: “Cummings is an unelected back-

room adviser, and there’s a worry the

PM is becoming just a front for his

ideological plans.” A No 10 source

denied that Cummings had sidelined

Lister, saying: “ Any suggestion that he

is not in the room is total nonsense.”

The cross-party rebels are return-

ing to ways to block no deal in law

partly because Labour has made it

clear it could not support a national

unity government formed after a no-

confi dence vote. The party would

prefer to push for a general election

or minority Labour administration led

by Jeremy Corbyn.

John McDonnell, the shadow

chancellor, said that if Johnson lost a

confi dence vote Corbyn would seek to

form a caretaker government instead,

with the support of other opposition

parties and rebel Conservative MPs.

If the Conservative leader failed

to quit, McDonnell quipped that he

would not “want to drag the Queen

into this but [he] would be sending

Jeremy Corbyn in a cab to Bucking-

ham Palace to say ‘we’re taking over’”.

Rebel Tory MPs would be extremely

wary about a plan that installed Cor-

byn as even a temporary prime

minister and many prefer the option of

legislation to block no deal rather than

a vote to collapse the government.

Peter Kyle, a Labour MP who led a

compromise plan to put any deal to

a second referendum, said he was

completely confi dent that any plans

by Johnson and Cummings to push

through no deal against the will of

parliament could be stopped.

“ If government acts unconvention-

ally and fl outs the sovereign power of

parliament, parliament will rise to the

challenge, and if they break the rules,

we will make new rules,” he said. He

said MPs would not be cowed by Cum-

mings, who was a “maverick populist

who spouts off to his blogger friends”.

But Chuka Umunna, the Lib Dem

MP and Treasury spokesman, said the

“vital cross-party work” would only

succeed if enough Labour and Tory

MPs stood ready to stop no deal.

Experts said it was a plausible plan

for cross-party rebels to seize con-

trol of the order paper via motions

for recess, which are called “periodic

adjournment motions”. They are not

normally amendable, but John Ber-

cow, the Speaker of the Commons,

caused a storm in January when he

defi ed this convention and allowed

the Tory MP Dominic Grieve to amend

a similar motion, which set a three-day

deadline for the then prime minister

to come back to the Commons with

new plans if her deal was voted down.

Grieve declined to comment on

the idea of amending the September

recess motion, but has said it would be

unconstitutional for Johnson to defy

a vote of no confi dence and remain in

No 10 until after the October deadline.

When approached by Sky News out-

side his home on yesterday, Cummings

gave a rare public comment, suggest-

ing parliament would not be able fi nd

a way of forcing out the prime minis-

ter to stop a no-deal Brexit.

“The most simple thing is the prime

minister believes that politicians don’t

get to choose which votes they respect,

that’s the critical issue,” he said. “I

don’t think I am arrogant. I don’t know

very much about very much. Mr Grieve

... we’ll see what he’s right about.”

News Politics Page 10 

Readers and

digital revenue

help Guardian

hit break even

▼ Dominic Cummings, who headed

the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016

referendum, entering No 10 yesterday

PHOTOGRAPH: CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/GETTY

 Continued from page 1

New bid by rebels to

halt no deal as fury

at Cummings grows

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