The Daily Telegraph Thursday 1 August 2019 *** 7
Tech giants in
threat to quit
UK over law on
bosses’ liability
By Mike Wright
SOCIAL MEDIA CORRESPONDENT
TECH giants are threatening to pull out
of the UK if a new law allows senior
executives to be prosecuted, The Daily
Telegraph has learned.
The Internet Association (IA) – the
official lobbying arm for firms such as
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon
and Microsoft – has warned the
Government that arming a new online
regulator with such powers would
create “a disincentive for existing
businesses to continue to provide their
services in the UK”.
It also argues that forcing social me-
dia companies to build a “back door”
into message encryption for the police
and security services would “under-
mine civil liberties” and that allowing a
regulator to investigate their secret al-
gorithms would be “unfair”.
The comments were made in the IA’s
response to the Government’s Online
Harms White Paper, which proposes a
statutory duty of care on internet com-
panies to protect their users, a measure
campaigned for by The Telegraph.
Daniel Dyball, the IA’s UK executive
director, said: “We will continue to
comply with UK rules and laws. But it is
vital that these allow the internet in-
dustry to continue to thrive, which is
why we are working with the Govern-
ment to get regulation right.”
But John Carr, secretary of the
Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Inter-
net Safety, said: “They talk about their
willingness to cooperate and volunteer,
but the evidence we have had is that
self-regulation is a con.”
Up to half of children have never
been to a butcher or greengrocer
By Camilla Turner EDUCATION EDITOR
THE future of Britain’s high street was
looking bleak last night after it was re-
vealed that a third of primary school-
children had never been to a butcher’s
or greengrocer’s shop, a survey found.
According to a poll by Nationwide
Building Society of 2,000 children
aged five to 11, a quarter said they did
not know what a high street was. Of
those surveyed, 32 per cent said they
had not visited a butcher while 23 per
cent had never been to a greengrocer.
Asked whether they had ever visited
a launderette, more than half said no,
while 44 per cent said they had never
been to a florist and 41 per cent said
they had not gone to a key-cutter.
There has been rising concern about
the high street, with a report by Retail
Economics predicting half of UK retail
transactions will be online within a
decade, up from about a fifth currently.
In the past 10 years, a string of big
chains have disappeared, including
Rise in registration
fees likely to lead
to dearer childcare
‘Helicopter parents
should learn from
hunter-gatherers’
Bitcoin buyers like
problem gamblers,
watchdog warns
By Camilla TurnerCHILDCARE costs are set to soar,
following Government plans to raise
registration costs by 20 per cent.
The annual fee to register with
Ofsted will rise from £35 to £43 for
childminders and from £220 to £
for nurseries from next April, according
to proposals published by the
Department for Education (DfE) in a
consultation document.
Government officials point out that
the registration fee has remained the
same for the past decade, and that the
“cost of inspection and regulation
continues to be heavily subsidised”.
But nursery leaders have criticised
the move as “reeking of double stand-
ards” as they warn that this could lead
to an increase in fees for parents.
Francesca Chong, manager of the
childcare app Yoopies UK, said: “You
could describe this as a stealth tax on
nurseries. It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth
to childcare providers which are
already struggling.
“This could lead to a rise in prices for
parents. A lot of childcare businesses
wouldn’t have any other choice but to
pass on the extra cost to parents.”By Sarah Knapton SCIENCE EDITORBRITAIN’S helicopter parents should
learn from hunter-gatherers who let
their toddlers play with machetes, if
they want to have self-sufficient
children, anthropologists at University
College London (UCL) have said.
Dr Gul Deniz Salali and her team
studied BaYaka communities living in
the rainforests of Congo, collecting
videos of 40 children as they carried
out different activities.
They discovered that a child as
young as 13 months was able to hold a
machete, simply by watching how his
parents and older siblings did it. A pair
of six-year-old twins already knew
which mushrooms to pick up during
foraging trips on their own.
Instead of being instructed how to
use tools or carry out tasks, the young-
sters copied their elders, and their
parents only stepped in to directly
teach them if they made a mistake.
Dr Salali said “Their way of parent-
ing is quite different than ‘helicopter
parenting’ and, I think, can inspire us
on how to raise self-sufficient adults.”
The research was published in the
journal Scientific Reports.By Sam Meadows
CONSUMERS buying Bitcoin are be-
having like problem gamblers, becom-
ing delusional about their investments,
the City watchdog has warned.
The Financial Conduct Authority
(FCA) yesterday published a study into
the impact of cryptocurrencies, of
which Bitcoin is the best known,
having previously warned of the high
levels of risk faced by investors.
In 2017, the price of Bitcoin soared to
almost $20,000 (£16,380), leading
many to invest large sums, but col-
lapsed to below $4,000 the following
year. It is now worth around $10,000.
The review concluded that few
investors had a good understanding of
what they were purchasing. Most re-
spondents thought making a profit was
“highly likely or even inevitable”. The
FCA said this bore similarities with the
kind of “distorted thinking” that made
problem gamblers believe they could
outsmart slot machines.
Although the FCA found that the
harm caused by trading could be lower
than expected, worryingly more than
one in 10 respondents said they used
long-term savings to buy digital coins.
Copy cat Only one Jaguar XJ13 was ever built, for the 24-hour race at Le Mans in 1966. But it never raced. That unique beast, now worth millions, is housed in
the Jaguar Museum in Coventry. However, a replica has emerged for auction at Sothebys in Monterey, California, tomorrow, at a guide price of £325,000.RMSOTHEBYS / BNPSNews
Duty of care
TELEGRAPH CAMPAIGN
Woolworth, BHS, Toys R Us and
Maplin. House of Fraser fell into
financial difficulties but was rescued
by Mike Ashley, the Sports Direct
owner, who pledged to make it the
“Harrods of the High Street”. National
DIY chain Homebase announced it wasto close dozens of stores and in May,
Marks & Spencer said it would shut 110
more stores, while profits plunged at
John Lewis last year.
The survey found 75 per cent of chil-
dren said their parents’ shopping usu-
ally came from a supermarket and two
fifths said their parents shopped online.
Online shopping habits varied geo-graphically, the poll found, with half of
children in London saying their family
shopped online, compared with just
over a quarter of children in Wales.
Yet nearly three quarters of those sur-
veyed said they would prefer to buy
items in a shop than online. The most
popular reason given was to explore dif-
ferent items, followed by feeling grown-
up and being able to talk to people.
Nationwide, which has promised not
to leave any town or city where they
are currently based until at least May
2021, commissioned the research.
MPs said this year that towns must
give themselves a unique selling point.
A report in February by a government
communities committee urged towns
to fight online shopping by adopting
aspirational, authentic “brands” to
attract shoppers. The report warned
ghost towns would result unless the
Government, councils, retailers, land-
lords and local communities acted.Editorial Comment: Page 17Moira Stuart is good news for Classic FM
By Anita Singh
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
CLASSIC FM has picked up nearly
250,000 breakfast show listeners in
the past year after hiring Moira Stuart
to read the news.
The “Moira effect” has boosted the
fortunes of the show, hosted by Tim Li-
horeau, at a time when other breakfast
shows are facing an audience decline.
Stuart joined the commercial station
in February after a career at the BBC.
The breakfast show now has an audi-
ence of 1.9 million, a rise of 249,
year-on-year. Overall, the classical sta-
tion increased its audience by 474,
to 5.6 million listeners per week.
BBC Radio 4’s audience dipped by
438,000 over the last three months, al-
though it is stable year-on-year. The
Today programme lost 312,000 listen-
ers over the same period, but is slightlyup on this time last year. The biggest
breakfast-time loser is Zoe Ball. When
she took over from Chris Evans on BBC
Radio 2 in January, ratings remained
stable. But within weeks, listeners be-
gan switching off. The audience has
dropped by 781,000 in the last quarter,
from 9,047 million to 8.266 million.
That is the lowest Radio 2 breakfast
audience in 11 years and means it is no
longer the most listened-to show on
UK radio. Ball has been leapfrogged by
Ken Bruce and his mid-morning pro-
gramme, which has 8.49 million listen-
ers. Radio 2’s overall audience fell byfive per cent to 14.59 million, its lowest
point since 2012, after a series of
changes to the established line-up. The
station lost Simon Mayo, while Sara
Cox and Jo Whiley began new shows
and Rylan Clark-Neal joined the Satur-
day line-up.
A Radio 2 spokesman said “audience
churn” is to be expected when major
schedule changes are made.
Across the airwaves, classical music
is doing well. Radio 3’s audience rose
by six per cent year-on-year to 2.03 mil-
lion, while Scala amassed 258,000 lis-
teners in its first months on air.Ex-BBC newsreader adds
249,000 listeners to
station as Zoe Ball’s Radio 2
breakfast show falters
The BBC’s Strictly
Come Dancing looks to
have already courted
controversy for 2019
when Emma Barton,
the EastEnders actress,
unveiled last night as a
contestant, was quoted
by the BBC as being
“very much a dance
around your handbag
kinda girl”. However,she has already
admitted to an unfair
advantage, having
starred in the West
End musical Chicago.
Asked in a newspaper
interview about 10
years ago whether she
would ever appear on
Strictly, she said:
“After all this time
dancing in Chicago,maybe it wouldn’t be
fair ... I have too much
experience.”
The other celebrities
confirmed for this
year’s BBC One show,
which starts next
month, are David
James, the former
England goalkeeper;
and Chris Ramsey, the
stand-up comedian.Strictly’s back First three celebrity contestants named
75
Percentage of primary schoolchildren who
said their parents’ shopping came not
from the high street, but big supermarketsРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS