The Times - UK (2022-02-16)

2 2GM Wednesday February 16 2022 | the times

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completion of drills. The defence minis-

try said that units of the western and

southern military districts would begin

returning to their permanent bases. It

published video of tanks, infantry fight-

ing vehicles and self-propelled artillery

being loaded on to trains. Moscow also

said that tactical battalion groups were

being withdrawn from Crimea.

Downing Street said that there were

“conflicting signals” of Russia’s inten-

tions and confirmed that intelligence

cast doubt on its claims.

Boris Johnson was briefed on the lat-

est situation by military and intelli-

gence chiefs as well as on domestic con-

tingency measures to deal with a pro-

tracted conflict. The Times understands

that this includes extensive work by the

National Cyber Security Centre to run

checks on critical infrastructure.

Officials in the Cabinet Office and

Treasury are drawing up “domestic

mitigations” to help industry cope with

an expected surge in oil and gas prices.

Johnson said that Russia was sending

“mixed signals”. “We’ve got Russian

field hospitals being constructed near

the border with Ukraine in Belarus,

which can only be construed as a prepa-

ration for an invasion,” he said. “You’ve

got more battalion tactical groups

actually being brought closer to the

border, according to the intelligence.”

Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-

general, said: “We have not seen any de-

escalation on the ground from the Rus-

sian side”. However, he added: “We be-

lieve there is some ground for cautious

optimism based on the signals and signs

Britons have adapted to working from

home without it significantly impairing

the nation’s productivity, data suggests.

Output-per-hour exceeded pre-

pandemic levels for the first time at the

end of last year, according to estimates

from the Office for National Statistics

(ONS).

The measure of the nation’s produc-

tivity was also higher than it had been in

the previous quarter, despite work-

from-home guidance being brought in

again over the Omicron variant of the

coronavirus.

Economists said it was too soon to

assess the full impact of working-from-

home and hybrid working, but the data

showed that the country had “learnt

how to work from home in a way that

avoids significant productivity losses”.

Output per hour worked was 2.3 per

cent above the 2019 average in the last

quarter of 2021, according to estimates

published yesterday. The reading was

1 per cent higher than the previous

three-month period, despite Decem-

ber’s work-from-home guidance

prompting a surge in those working

Wages are growing faster than inflation

Arthi Nachiappan

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Becoming breezy with increasing
amounts of cloud and spells of rain
or snow. Full forecast, page 53

THE WEATHER

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Met resisting

racism stance

The Met is resisting a
declaration by the
National Police Chiefs
Council that policing is
institutionally racist,
despite warnings that
it cannot heal relations
with the black
community without
the admission. Other
forces are also said to
be resisting. Page 6

Musk donates

$6bn of shares

Elon Musk has given

nearly $6 billion of

Tesla shares to charity,

making him America’s

biggest philanthropist

after Bill and Melinda

Gates. He gave a total

of 5,044,000 shares in

the world’s most

valuable carmaker to

unnamed charities last

November. Page 7

Djokovic: I’m

no antivaxer

Novak Djokovic has

insisted he is not an

antivaxer but medical

experts argued that his

position of allowing

people the freedom to

choose could worsen

the pandemic. He is

expected to be allowed

to defend his

Wimbledon title.

Page 14; Sport, page 66

City stroll and

Ronaldo goal

Manchester City

thrashed Sporting

Lisbon 5-0 away in the

Champions League

and Paris St-Germain

beat Real Madrid 1-0.

In the Premier League

Cristiano Ronaldo

scored his first goal

since December as

Manchester United

beat Brighton. Page 66

France to pull

out of Mali

France is to pull its
troops out of Mali,
abandoning swathes of
desert to jihadists and
Russian mercenaries.
An announcement is
expected as early as
this week on the
withdrawal and British
troops will be more
exposed to attacks
as a result. Page 28

FCA faces new

embarrassment

The Financial Conduct

Authority faces

pressure to pay more

compensation to the

victims of the London

Capital & Finance

scandal after an

independent

commissioner

dismissed the

watchdog’s approach

as flawed. Page 33

COMMENT

Britain is running out of babies and sooner

or later we’ll have to talk about what to do

JAMES KIRKUP, PAGE 23

COMMENT 23

LETTERS 26

LEADING ARTICLES 27

WORLD 28

BUSINESS 33

REGISTER 49

SPORT 55

CROSSWORD 66

TV & RADIO TIMES

DAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APP

To day’s highlights

7.20am

11am

11am

8.30pm

10pm

Ben Wallace, defence secretary

Disunited Kingdom: Matt Chorley hears

news from the four corners of the UK

One of Britain’s most eminent forensic scientists,

Angela Gallop, on her 45-year career solving crimes

The Bafta-winning TV doctor and Sunday

Times bestselling author Dr Ranj Singh,

right, on his new book, Brain Power

Carole Walker’s MPs’ panel: the Tory

MP Andy Carter and Labour’s Bill

Esterson review the political news

Workers keep up productivity

despite shifting office to home

Arthi Nachiappan

Economics Correspondent

away from the office. Output per work-

er rose by 0.8 per cent during the Octo-

ber-to-December quarter, compared

with 2019. It was up 1.1 per cent from the

previous quarter.

Productivity measures output per

unit of work. It gauges the efficiency of

a business’s production process, while

on a national level, it is a prime source

of economic growth.

Bart Van Ark, professor of productiv-

ity studies at the University of Man-

chester, said it was too soon to tell if the

shift to working from home and hybrid

models of working had increased pro-

ductivity. However, he said: “I would

say we have learnt to work from home

in a way that avoids significant produc-

tivity losses, but that’s as far as I would

go. Now that we see this sort of

improvement in Q4 over Q3, it seems to

suggest that move back to work from

home [because of Omicron] didn’t

really impact productivity much.”

Total hours worked in the economy

remained at the same level in the final

quarter of last year compared with the

previous quarter, despite the end of the

furlough scheme. This means the one

million furloughed workers previously

not working but included in

employment figures had returned to

work, but there was no rise in the

number of hours worked.

Josh Martin, head of productivity at

the ONS, tweeted that the figures sug-

gested there was a fall in working hours

masked in the data. “Total hours

worked in the economy were basically

flat between Q3 and Q4, despite one

million people coming off furlough,” he

said. “That suggests a fall in average

working hours of those not furloughed.”

Lower hours worked could reflect

employees who work shorter hours

returning to their jobs after the end of

furlough, as well as capturing the initial

effects of the Omicron variant, which

caused reduced working hours through

self-isolation and sickness.

6 Britain has lost almost 100,

manufacturing jobs over the past ten

years whereas Germany has gained

nearly a million, according to research

by Labour. Sir Keir Starmer, while on a

visit to Burnley yesterday, accused the

government of presiding over a “shock-

ing decline” in the number of manufac-

turing jobs. The Labour leader is

touring Britain this week in an effort to

claw back support in the party’s former

heartlands.

continued from page 1

Russian withdrawal doubts

second month running in December,

worsening the cost of living squeeze.

Adjusting for inflation, total pay was

down 0.1 per cent in real terms between

October and December, or 0.8 per cent

when excluding bonuses.

The consumer prices index rose by

4.9 per cent in the final quarter of 2021,

and is expected to be higher in an up-

date later today.

Future jobs, leading article, page 27

‘Real’ wages higher than before Covid,

Business, page 36

coming from Moscow.” Ben Wallace,

the defence secretary, will go to Nato

HQ in Brussels today for a meeting of

defence ministers.

Ukraine crisis, pages 8-

Putin’s military blackmail has cost

him trust, leading article, page 27

Wages have grown faster than inflation,

with incomes almost 4 per cent higher

at the end of last year than in February

2020.

Pay rose by 4.9 per cent in the year to

December 2021 as companies sought to

retain and attract staff in the face of

mounting inflation and labour short-

ages. Employers are expected to

continue increasing pay this year,

despite a plea for restraint by Andrew

Bailey, the governor of the Bank of

England.

The median monthly pay of pay-

rolled workers rose by 6.3 per cent in

the year to last month, according to

PAYE data also published by the Office

for National Statistics. Since February

2020 it has advanced by 10.3 per cent.

Economists say that workers are still

likely to see a drop in real wages after

inflation hit its highest level in almost

three decades. The real value of wages,

excluding bonuses, contracted for the

caused by statins, and secondly, to

evaluate whether it might be patients’

perceptions that statins are harmful —

the so-called nocebo or drucebo effect

— which could be responsible for more

than 50 per cent of all symptoms, rather

than the drug itself.

“These results clearly show that

patients needn’t be afraid of statin

therapy as it is very well tolerated in as

much as 93 per cent, which is similar or

even better than other cardiology

drugs.”

The research analysed 176 studies of

4,143,517 patients worldwide. Those

studied were typically aged about 60

and 40 per cent were women.

Statins help to lower the level of low-

density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol

in the blood. LDL cholesterol is often

referred to as “bad cholesterol” and is

linked to cardiovascular disease, which

can increase the chance of strokes and

heart attacks. Statins cost the NHS

about £20 a person a year to prescribe.

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical

director at the British Heart Founda-

tion, said: “Decades of evidence have

proven that statins save lives.”

People who were older, female, of

black or Asian background, obese,

suffering from diabetes, an underactive

thyroid gland, or chronic liver or kidney

failure were more likely to be statin-

intolerant. People on some drugs, such

as those for high blood pressure, and

heavy drinkers also had a higher risk of

statin intolerance, the study showed.

Statins should once again become

the norm, leading article, page 27

continued from page 1

Analysis Statin side effects

R

ussia’s claimed

withdrawal of some

forces may have eased

immediate fears of an

invasion but tensions

will escalate if President Putin

recognises the independence of

two Kremlin-backed breakaway

regions (Marc Bennetts writes).

Even if Putin is pulling back

from confrontation he has many

reasons to be pleased. Although

he failed to secure a guarantee

that Ukraine would never be

admitted to Nato, he has

successfully reinforced the idea

that its membership could lead to

a full-scale war.

If the withdrawal is genuine,

the focus will shift to the

Donetsk People’s Republic and

the Luhansk People’s Republic,

the pro-Moscow separatist

regions in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s parliament voted

yesterday to ask Putin to

recognise them as independent

states, which would allow

Moscow to arm the regions

openly. This could be the most

dangerous moment.

Banca do Antfer

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