2 2GM Tuesday October 20 2020 | the times
News
the difficulty of climbing on to the
property ladder, the burden of student
debt and a greater dependence on
support from parents have created a
perception that “the chances of success
or failure in life depend less upon hard
work and enterprise, and more upon
inherited wealth and privilege”.
The study, the most comprehensive
of its kind, drew on data from 4.8 mil-
lion people in more than 160 countries
between 1973 and 2020. It found that
millennials and members of Genera-
tion X had grown steadily less satisfied
with democracy as they aged.
By contrast most baby boomers, now
in their sixties and seventies, continue
to report satisfaction with democracy.
The same is true of the interwar gener-
ation, born between 1918 and 1943.
Nations where wealth is distributed
more equally, such as Iceland or
Austria, have much less divergence
between the generations. “This demo-
cratic disconnect is not a given, but the
result of democracies failing to deliver
outcomes that matter for young people
in recent decades, from jobs and life
chances to addressing inequality and
climate change,” Dr Foa said.
Some countries that have elected
populist leaders have experienced a
rebound. On average those aged 18-
reported a 16 percentage point increase
in satisfaction with democracy during
the first term in office of a populistScience and Technology Laboratory in
Britain during their investigations of
the 2018 novichok poisoning.
Britain had already taken action
against the GRU by working with inter-
national partners to impose asset freez-
es and travel bans, the Foreign Office
said. It did not comment on why Britain
had not chosen to lay its own charges
against the Russians involved.
Such judicial redress from the British
authorities is rare, although GRU
members have been charged in the US
for hacking the 2016 election. The
scope of the American inquiry suggests
the authorities there had a wider per-
spective on the Russian actions. Should
the agents travel in British jurisdiction
it is likely they would face extradition.
Russia was banned from the 2020
Olympics and the 2022 Fifa World Cup
in 2019 after the World Anti-Doping
Agency charged it with a state-spon-© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2020.
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TODAY’S EDITION
COMMENT 27
LETTERS 30
LEADING ARTICLES 31WORLD 32
BUSINESS 37
REGISTER 53SPORT 58
CROSSWORD 68
TV & RADIO TIMESFOLLOW US
thetimes timesandsundaytimes thetimesCOMMENT
Trust has broken down when it is needed more
than ever and it’s the prime minister’s fault
RACHEL SYLVESTER, PAGE 27
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3932029161617171413122Leslie cleared
of sex assault
John Leslie, the former
Blue Peter presenter,
wept after he was
acquitted of sexual
assault. A judge said
that he could leave
“without a stain” on his
character after he was
cleared of grabbing a
woman’s breasts at a
Christmas party
12 years ago. Page 5
EU paves way
for fresh talks
Downing Street and
the EU moved a step
closer to resuming
Brexit talks yesterday
after Brussels made a
concession to try to
break the four-day
impasse in a phone call
between Michel
Barnier and his
counterpart, Lord
Frost. Page 6Families flee
fire-risk flats
Residents at a housing
development near
Grenfell Tower have
been told to leave
because of fire risks.
More than a thousand
have been sent to
nearby hotels after
defects were found at
the Paragon complex
in Brentford, west
London. Page 14Liverpool want
injury answers
Liverpool are pushing
for answers over the
incident that wrecked
the season of their
defender Virgil van
Dijk after inconsistent
explanations of how
match officials dealt
with a reckless
challenge by Jordan
Pickford, the Everton
goalkeeper. Page 68Today’s
highlights
Listen for free DAB | Smart speaker | Online at times.radio | Times Radio app
8.15am Nadhim Zahawi,
business minister
10am Matt Chorley reveals the
winner of his World Cup of
Fictional Politicians
2pm The author Jodi Picoult, right,
on her novel and the US election
4pm Andrew Neil presents Drive
10.30pm Martin Bell and Tom Harwood
with Wednesday’s front pages
Trump attacks
Biden family
President Trump
accused Joe Biden of
being part of an
organised crime family
and called Anthony
Fauci, the senior
White House
coronavirus adviser, an
idiot as he tried to win
over swing states and
reduce his ten-point
poll deficit. Page 32
Boohoo turmoil
as PWC departs
About £775 million has
been wiped off the
stock market value of
the fast-fashion group
Boohoo after it
confirmed that PWC
was standing down as
its auditor. It follows
claims of poor factory
conditions in Leicester.
The shares fell 20 per
cent to 252½p. Page 37sored effort to cheat its way to medals.
John Demers, the US assistant attor-
ney-general for national security, said
that the “Olympic Destroyer” attack
was carried out in retaliation for the
investigation of the Russian Olympic
team. It “combined the emotional
maturity of a petulant child with the
resources of a nation state”, he said.
“No country has weaponised its
cyber-capabilities as maliciously or
irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly
causing unprecedented damage to pur-
sue small tactical advantages and to
satisfy fits of spite,” Mr Demers said.
British officials said that the targets
of cyberattacks against the 2020
Games “included the Games’ organis-
ers, logistic services and sponsors”.
The NCSC said that GRU hackers
disguised themselves as North Koreans
and Chinese to target the 2018 Games,
before the anti-doping ban, going on to
target broadcasters, a ski resort,
Olympic officials and sponsors.
The GRU has been implicated in thepoisoning in Salisbury as well as cyber-
attacks on western democracy. Twelve
agents were charged for hacking the
Democratic National Convention and
passing information to Wikileaks
before the 2016 presidential election.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary,
described the GRU’s hacking attempts
as “cynical and reckless”. “We condemn
them in the strongest possible terms,”
he said. “The UK will continue to work
with our allies to call out and counter
future malicious cyberattacks.”
The government credited the attacks
to the GRU’s Main Centre for Special
Technologies, also known by its field
post number, 74455. It is better known
by its nicknames, including Sandworm,
Black Energy Group, Telebots, Voodoo
Bear and Iron Viking. This was the unit
implicated in the 2016 Democratic
National Convention hack.
The charges also relate to a hacking
and leak effort aimed at the party of
President Macron in the days leading
up to his 2017 election in France.continued from page 1
Russian plot to hack Olympics
leader. Where moderate politicians had
narrowly beaten or succeeded a
populist rival, the researchers found no
comparable increase.
“We find this not only in cases where
left-wing populists are elected, but also
under right-wing populism. The major
exception is the presidency of Donald
Trump in the United States,” the
researchers wrote.
The study also hints at increasingly
partisan political views. In western
democracies, 41 per cent of millennials
agree that you can “tell if a person is
good or bad if you know their politics”,
compared with 30 per cent of voters
over the age of 35. “The prevalence of
polarising attitudes among millennials
may mean advanced democracies
remain fertile ground for populist
politics,” Dr Foa said.
Democracy’s virtues must be defended,
leading article, page 31Boomerang
generation ‘is
going to stay’
Greg Hurst Social Affairs Editor
The “boomerang generation” of young
people who return to live at home with
their parents is likely to become a
permanent trend and will be more
prevalent among middle-class families,
a study has suggested.
Parents would move beyond bringing
up children to living alongside them
well into early adulthood, researchers
at Loughborough University’s centre
for research in social policy found.
Family life would increasingly require
rules on how much adult children
should pay towards household finances
and take part in chores.
The proportion of single 20-34-year-
olds without children living with their
parents has grown from 55 per cent in
2008-09 to 63 per cent in 2017-18. The
total doing so at present is 3.5 million.
Katherine Hill, a senior research
associate at Loughborough and the
lead author, said: “Children living at
home well into their twenties is not a
temporary phenomenon, it’s here to
stay. A lot of young people will spend
most of a decade of their lives living like
this.”Victims and the press would be able to
attend parole board hearings for the
first time under plans to increase
transparency in the justice system after
the John Worboys scandal.
The proposal to open up hearings
and give victims access to information
on the behaviour of offenders and their
possible release is part of a “root and
branch” review of the system.
Also under consideration is whether
the Parole Board needs greater powers,
such as being able to compel witnesses,
and whether it should operate more like
a tribunal in a courtroom setting.
In 2018 the board decided on early
release for Worboys, 63, the black cab
rapist convicted in 2009 of rape and
sexual attacks on 12 women. Some of
Worboys’s victims had not been told
about his pending release and others
won a High Court ruling forcing the
board to reconsider its decision. A panelParole hearings could open to
victims in transparency drive
Fiona Hamilton Crime Editor subsequently decided he should stay in
prison and in June this year he admitted
four more attacks on women.
Today the Ministry of Justice will
begin a consultation on whether hear-
ings should be opened up to improve
transparency. Hearings were conven-
tionally secret but measures put in place
since the Worboys saga include the in-
troduction of decision summaries.
More than 3,500 have been released to
explain the reasons for parole decisions.
A consultation paper says that open
hearings would be consistent with the
principle of open justice. “Public hear-
ings might improve confidence in and
understanding of the parole system, by
showing the diligence with which the
Parole Board performs its functions.”
It acknowledges that there are
obstacles, given the sensitive nature of
information covered at hearings. This
includes details about the offender,
including the results of psychological
assessments and family relationships.The board also considers graphic evi-
dence about the original crime.
There are concerns that prisoners
could try to embellish their evidence to
try to win public sympathy and support
for their release. The consultation notes
the risk of offenders “acting up” for the
camera by issuing threats or making
inappropriate statements. For those
reasons it is considered unlikely that
hearings would be opened to the public.
The Ministry of Justice has indicated
that most hearings would continue to
be in private, but under the proposal
victims and the press could make appli-
cations to attend on specific occasions.
A “tailored review” of the Parole
Board over the past 18 months backed
plans to give media access. It said: “The
review team is supportive of the plans
to allow media access to hearings.”
Lucy Frazer, QC, a justice minister,
said: “We have the opportunity to take
a fundamental look at the system to
ensure it continues to protect people.”56%
54%
52%
50%
48%
46%
20
Age at time of survey30 40 50 60 70 80
Millennials
1981-Generation X
1965-Baby boomers
1944-Interwar generations
1918-Satisfaction with democracy
by age
Data collected from 1973 to 2020 Source: University of Cambridgecontinued from page 1
Faith in democracy falls