Dire day for UK high street as retailers reveal poor Christmas trading

Morrisons issues surprise profit warning in tough market while Tesco and Marks & Spencer post worse-than-expected sales

Morrisons, Tesco and Marks & Spencer have all posted disappointing trading over the crucial Christmas period. Photograph: David Levene

The dire state of the UK high street was laid bare on Thursday asMorrisons, Tesco and Marks & Spencer unveiled weak trading over the crucial Christmas period.

In a surprise statement to the stock exchange, Morrisons warned its profits would be at the bottom end of City forecasts. The supermarket chain blamed consumers' lack of spare cash and its lack of a home delivery service and too few convenience stores for a 5.6% fall in sales at established branches in the six weeks to 5 January.

The chief executive, Dalton Philips, said: "In a very tough market our sales performance over Christmas was disappointing." He said shoppers who would traditionally stock up for Christmas at Morrisons had instead turned to discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, also announced worse-than-expected Christmas sales, which fell by 2.4% in the UK. "Clearly Christmas was disappointing," said the chief executive, Philip Clarke.

Clarke said that while online and convenience store revenue had risen, the group's large out-of-town stores had suffered falling sales. He said: "It's tough because the market is tough and consumers are still feeling they don't have as much to spend."

Adding to the grim day for big retailers, Marks & Spencer said non-food sales in the three months to 28 December fell below its own expectations. Group like-for-like sales in the eight weeks before Christmas were up 1% but over the past three months they were down.

Marc Bolland, the M&S chief executive, blamed unusually warm weather in October for the sales fall and said improved business over Christmas, helped by big discounts, could not make up the lost ground. Turning round M&S's ailing clothing business is Bolland's biggest headache.

All three bosses are under pressure to revive their businesses while dealing with fierce competition and reduced household spending power. Morrisons is trying to catch up with its rivals in the growth areas of online sales and convenience stores while Tesco is ploughing money into its long-neglected UK stores. Both are losing out to Aldi and Lidl, which have claimed record UK Christmas trading.

M&S's food business performed solidly but Bolland needs to revamp the group's clothing range, which is losing out to Next, arch-rival John Lewis and high-fashion chains such as Zara.

Bolland blamed other retailers for starting a price war in December that he said had forced M&S to offer discounts of up to 30% on general merchandise. Debenhams discounted aggressively in the runup to Christmas and unveiled a profit warning last week.

"Holding our nerve was something we were doing but the market didn't. We were not the first in; we were one of the last."

M&S said its discounting would reduce the profit margin in general merchandise.

Britain's big retailers face multiple problems – shoppers are buying more online and are cutting back on big weekend trips to the supermarket. With incomes squeezed by rising prices and stagnant wages they are spending less and taking their custom to discount chains.

Andre Spicer, a professor at Cass Business School, said: "The big companies have been resting on their laurels. This means while they are trying to change things around the fringe, they may have overlooked the reason that customers go to them in the first place – for good value in the case of Tesco or for quality in the case of M&S."

While John Lewis uses its stores to let shoppers browse, have a coffee and order online, "going into the average Tesco is a depressing experience most people avoid if they can", he added.

Academics consider legal action to force Foreign Office to release public records

Mau Mau suspects being led away by police in Kenya's Rift Valley in 1952. The huge cache of unreleased papers only came to light after Kenyans tortured during the 1950s sued the British government to win compensation in 2011. Photo: Popperfoto/Getty

Leading historians are calling on the UK's Foreign Office to "come clean" over its plans for a massive archive of public documents, which it has unlawfully kept hidden for decades, prompting accusations that it has been attempting to manipulate impressions of Britain's past.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has hoarded 1.2m files – some of them dating back to the 1840s – in breach of the 30-year rule of the Public Records Act, which should have seen them transferred to the National Archive.

Such is the level of concern among some historians that a number of leading figures from Oxford, Cambridge and London universities are known to have discussed whether legal action may be necessary to secure the archive and to bring it into the public domain.

Some are concerned that major works about contemporary British and imperial history may need to be rewritten, while others believe that what they describe as a scandalous act of concealment underlines the need for a major overhaul of the system for declassification of government papers as public records.

After the existence of the hidden archive was reported in the Guardian in October, FCO minister David Lidington told MPs that those documents considered by his department to be of the greatest public interest would be transferred to the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, over a six-year period.

One of the historians considering whether legal action may be needed to secure access is Richard Drayton, Rhodes professor of imperial history at King's College London, who described the pledge to hand over a proportion of the documents within six years as "weak and evasive".

Currently the archive – which the FCO calls its "special collections" – is hidden from public view inside a high-security facility at Hanslope Park, 60 miles north of London, which the department shares with MI5 and MI6.

Since Lidington's announcement, the FCO has refused to answer questions about its plans for the transfer of the archive. As a result, it is not yet known what proportion of the 1.2m documents will be released within six years; whether any of the remaining documents will be made public, and, if so, the timescale over which this will take place; and how much public money the operation will cost.

Some details of the FCO's plans for the archive were outlined at the National Archives in November, at a meeting from which the public was excluded. After studying the plan, the archives' advisory council, which more usually examines government departments' applications to retain files beyond 30 years, told the FCO that it needed to see greater detail. Neither the FCO nor the archives will make the plan public.

Meanwhile, the FCO is failing to meet its new public records obligations under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which is gradually reducing the 30-year rule to 20 years from this month. Other government departments are now releasing papers from both 1983 and 1984, and in 2015 will be releasing papers from 1985 and 1986.

The FCO, however, maintains that it is too busy dealing with the backlog created by its hoarding of the 1.2m files to be in any position to meet its new legal target.

Drayton said: "The FCO has so far released an inventory of such opacity that the public has only the slightest chance of identifying what is of 'greatest interest'. What we can glean from it, however, is that it contains material that runs back into at least the 1840s. That these public records are being withheld from the public is a scandal."

Drayton said he was concerned that the FCO would declassify some of its secret archive by quietly slipping papers into declassified files at Kew, as has happened in the past with both FCO and other government department papers. "The burying of secrets by the state at the department level must not be followed, as it has been in the past, by their burying in existing records at the National Archives." Drayton also believes that it is time for the Public Records Act to be overhauled.

Professor Margaret MacMillan, warden of St Antony's College, Oxford, said: "I am one of many historians who has benefitted from using the British archives and who had confidence that the documents had not been weeded to suit particular interests.

"Now I am wondering whether I will have to go back and rethink my work on such matters as the outbreak of the first world war or the peace conference at the end. But when are we going to get the complete records? So far the pace of transferring them is stately, to put it politely."

Professor Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at London University, warned against further secrecy in the handling of the special collections. "It's extremely important that the British government establishes a mechanism for the review of these files that is both transparent and credible," he said.

"It may well be that a significant proportion of this material is either of little historical interest or substantially duplicates material that is already in the public domain. But the very fact that the British government has – apparently – failed to act in accordance with the 1958 Public Records Act in respect to these files has already undermined its credibility.

"Unless a proper system of oversight is established, that credibility will suffer further. It's a mistake to imagine that the sense of resentment felt in those countries affected by British imperial policy will diminish as the years pass. If anything, we see signs of that collective feeling of resentment heightening in the early years of the 21st century. It is vital for the UK's international reputation that it can prove it is not seeking to whitewash the historical record."

The Foreign Office admitted to the existence of 8,800 files in 2011, during litigation brought on behalf of thousands of Kenyans whosuccessfully sued the UK government to win compensation for the tortures they suffered while prisoners of the British colonial authorities during the 1950s Mau Mau insurgency.

It did not admit at that time that these colonial-era files were just a tiny part of the secret archive of 1.2m papers. The department quietly arranged for the archive to be put on a legal footing in November 2012, by asking Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, to sign a 12-month authorisation. That was extended for a further 12 months last November, ostensibly to give the FCO more time to draw up plans for declassification of its secret archive.

An FCO spokesman said that the department would have further information early this year about both the special collections and releasing the 20-year-old papers.

The FCO is not the only government department that has been unlawfully hoarding public records. Earlier this year the Guardian disclosed that the Ministry of Defence was holding 66,000 files at an archive in the Midlands, in breach of the Public Records Act.

The disclosure caused concern in Northern Ireland, where police investigations into killings by soldiers and police are continuing, and where many inquests have yet to be concluded. However, the FCO's secret archive dwarves those of other departments.

And the Golden Globe goes to…

Bryan Cranston (R) and Aaron Paul (L) of Breaking Bad at the awards. PHOTO: REUTERS

BEVERLY HILLS: With awards season in full swing, stars are out in full force, dressed to the nines and eyeing those coveted statuettes. The Golden Globes were no different, and here’s who won, who lost, and most importantly, who looked the best (which we’ve covered in our red carpet roundup).

While hosts Tina Fey and Any Poehler’s opening monologue was arguably the best ten minutes of the night, there were quite a few memorable moments overall, as Jaqueline Bisset unofficially won the award for Worst Golden Globes Acceptance Speech Ever, and Presenter Emma Thompson flung her heels across the stage before announcing the winner.

12 Years a Slave took the coveted Golden Globe for Best Drama and American Hustle won Best Musical or Comedy film, in a kick-off to a Hollywood awards season that attests to a difficult selection for the jury, given a year crowded with high-quality movies.

American Hustle, a romp through corruption in the 1970s directed by David O Russell, was the top winner of the night, taking home three of its seven nominations for the 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards.

Director Steve McQueen’s brutal depiction of pre-Civil war slavery in 12 Years a Slave only won one award out of its seven nominations, and was shut out from the acting honours.

The top drama acting awards went to Oscar frontrunner Cate Blanchett for her turn as a riches-to-rags socialite in Woody Allen’s tragic-comedy Blue Jasmine, and Matthew McConaughey for his unlikely AIDS activist in Dallas Buyers Club, a role for which he lost 50 pounds.

His co-star Jared Leto took the best supporting actor Globe for his role as Rayon, a transsexual with AIDS. We predict that Leto will soon be adding ‘Oscar Winner’ to his resume for the same role.

Amy Adams won Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for her role as the conniving partner to a con-man played by Christian Bale in American Hustle, while Jennifer Lawrence took Best Supporting Actor for her turn as his loopy wife.

Leonardo DiCaprio won Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his role as a fast-living, drug-popping, swindling stockbroker in the The Wolf of Wall Street, his fifth collaboration with director Martin Scorsese.

“As the history of cinema unfolds, you will be regarded as one of the great artists of all time,” DiCaprio told Scorsese as he accepted his Golden Globe. Many are hopeful that this will be the year that the Academy will finally recognize DiCaprio’s acting prowess and present him with a long overdue Oscar Statuette for Best Actor.

Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron won Best Director for his existential space thrillerGravity, and director Spike Jonze took home the Globe for Best Screenplay for his quirky computer-age comedy Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix.

Woody Allen was honoured with the Cecil B DeMille award, recognizing outstanding contribution to the entertainment field. Famously averse to awards shows, the 78-year-old Allen sent one of his favourite actresses, Diane Keaton, to stand in for him. Allen’s ex-wife, Mia Farrow, went the joking route about the tribute.

The battle for Awards glory has just begun.

Here’s the full list of Golden Globe winners

Best motion picture, drama: 12 Years a Slave

Best actress in a motion picture, drama: Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine

Best actor in a motion picture, drama: Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club

Best motion picture, comedy or musical: American Hustle

Best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy: Amy Adams – American Hustle

Best actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Wolf of Wall Street

Best animated feature film: Frozen

Best supporting actress in a motion picture: Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle

Best supporting actor in a motion picture: Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club

Best director, motion picture: Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity

Best TV series, drama: “Breaking Bad”

Best actress in a TV series, drama: Robin Wright – “House of Cards”

Best actor in a TV series, drama: Bryan Cranston- “Breaking Bad”

Best TV series, musical or comedy: “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”

Best actress in a TV series, musical or comedy: Amy Poehler – “Parks and Recreation”

Best actor in a TV series, musical or comedy: Andy Samberg – “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”

Irrfan Khan steps out of comfort zone for Gunday

Film’s director says just like Gabbar made Jai and Veeru look better in Sholay, Ranveer and Arjun are looking much stronger because of Irrfan. PHOTO: FILE

With Ranveer Singh pairing up with real-life bud Arjun Kapoor in Aditya Chopra production’s upcoming venture Gunday, all eyes are on them to see how their off-screen camaraderie translates onto celluloid. Playing the roles of Bikram and Bala, the two have been referred to as the equivalent of Jai and Veeru from Sholay. It is no surprise that in a film that is reminiscent of Sholay, there is a version of the infamous Gabbar.

What may come as a surprising pick, critically acclaimed actor Irrfan Khan has been selected to play this commercial, larger-than-life role, reports the Indian Express. According to a source, “The idea was to make this Gabbar look decidedly different from what one would assume would be in a film titled Gunday.”

Irrfan, who is known for movies that are off the beaten path, will step foot into commercial cinema with his role in the film. “For starters, Irrfan had to come out of his realistic zone. You know the kind that he has perfected so very well, in his recent films like The Lunchbox andLife of Pi. Instead, he had to get into an out-and-out commercial zone where despite being an antagonist, he had to be nothing short of a hero,” the source added.

Thus, a complete makeover has been planned for the actor to enhance his style quotient and appeal for the masses. “The idea is to make Irrfan come across as a lot more mass-y by being flamboyant and mainstream. This is reflected in his dialogue delivery as well,” said director Ali Abbas Zafar, who himself is making a genre transition from rom-com Mere Brother Ki Dulhan to the action-packed Gunday. “He [Irrfan] has been so strong in realistic cinema and in Gunday, I wanted him to come across as a lot more heroic and stylised.”

Irrfan is content with his portrayal in the film and Ali is thrilled to work with an actor of his stature. “I am fortunate that Irrfan liked the script and he did it. Because of him, Ranveer and Arjun are looking much stronger. Wasn’t it the same when Gabbar made Jai and Veeru look better in Sholay,” Ali said.

We can’t wait to see Irrfan in this new avatar!

RPTW’s 12th Annual Mystic Music Festival spellbinds

The performances were entrancing and projected the message of love that Sufi music encapsulates. PHOTOS: PUBLICITY

LAHORE: 

Of all the forms of devotional music, Sufi music, despite being age-old, has the ability to appeal to modern sensibilities. It encapsulates a facet of Eastern spirituality that can entrance anyone with its message of love. Celebrating this unparalleled, mystical magic of Sufi kalam, Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) organised its 12th Annual Mystic Music Festival from January 10 till January 12. 

The festival is a commendable medium to project the Sufi path that gets one in touch with the soul. The three-day event is perhaps one of the most widely attended events organised by RPTW. The platform makes Sufi music accessible for the genre’s enthusiasts.

But other than the gripping kalam, what attracts a following for Sufi music are the artistes themselves, whose history and traditions are worth knowing. In a backstage conversation with some of the musicians performing at the festival, The Express Tribune explores the various aspects of their lives as Sufi singers.

The family of musicians, called Shah Jo Raag, who sing at the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai have maintained their 400 year long tradition and kept close to their roots. There is nothing commercial about their craft and there is potent spirituality in their music.

Muhammed Ismail Mirjat, who is a direct descendent of Shah Jamal, says that every Thursday, the singers gather after the Isha prayer and sing for the rest of the night and on the event of an Urs, they sing consecutively for three days.

“This has been going on since three hundred years. We have never missed a day at the shrine and we perform without any money/salary to sustain ourselves; it is pure devotion and no night has been empty,” says Mirjat.

Saeein Ghulam Abbas of the Madhu Lal Group adds that although the musicians hail from different backgrounds, they all wish to enter the dervish mode while performing, through the song, the sound of the dhol or dance. Having travelled around the globe, he says that it is praiseworthy that the festival pays homage to the complete devotion and purity of the centuries-old Sufi poetry and songs.

“I think if a hundred people came to any of our shows, they will develop faith in the Sufi way because it’s the way of peace and calm,” says Abbas. “There is a fear that we may become extinct, but let me say that whenever the Sufi message is discussed, people do gather.”

The festival brought together some of the most renowned Sufi artistes this week, including Sanam Marvi, Saeein Zahoor, Pappu Saeein, Akhtar Chinar and Arieb Azhar. Each day had its own charm, and with its greatly designed set-up and impeccable sound system, the event had a high entertainment quotient.

On its last day, the show started with an act by Mehboob Mian Miri qawwal and was reminiscent of the days when the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan could captivate any crowd with his live performances. On the recommendation of Saidaan Peerzada of RPTW, the qawwal tried a first-off fusion performance with Rafaqat Ali Khan, for which he harmonised his traditional qawwali with Khan’s contemporary classical music.

Krishnan Lal Bheel from Cholistan, who performed primarily in his local Marvai language, sees the festival as an institution that has, in modern times, given a platform to Sufi artistes both locally and internationally.

While Sufi and folk music continues to embark upon its aim of touching the soul of the masses, Bheel says that the government must do more to preserve the art. “If the government would give us some support, it would help make [Sufi and folk] music thrive again. Many of our elders are leaving slowly because they cannot sustain themselves and don’t receive much emphasis or protocol,” says Bheel.

It is fitting to see Sufi artistes, who rarely get the opportunity to display their art in the mainstream, being offered a prestigious channel to do so in the form of the RPTW Mystic Music Festival

FIFA SAYS IT WILL PUBLISH VOTES

Extended voting period didn't change order of top three for Ballon d'Or

• Cristiano Ronaldo: "I won't lie – we all want to win"

• Messi: "What Cristiano has been doing with his club and his country is admirable"

• Hoeness and the anti-Ribéry plot

01/13/2014

• Print
• Send

During the press conference with the candidates for the Ballon d'Or, FIFA has indicated that the extension of the voting period from 15th to 29th November didn't change the order of the players on the podium for the Ballon d'Or, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi and Ribéry.

Coaches and captains of national teams, as well as selected journalists, have supplied their votes to FIFA to decide who'll win the trophy this year.

Furthermore, FIFA will publish all votes for the best player and the best coach. The international football association does not want a repeat of the events that unfolded with Pandev last year. The captain of the Macedonian team had corroborated with Mourinho regarding supposed 'irregularities' in the Ballon d'Or vote for best coach.

India's Tata launches new Nano with power steering

Tata's new Nano Twist PHOTO:PUBLICITY

MUMBAI: India’s struggling Tata Nano, launched in 2009 as the world’s cheapest car, unveiled a new, pricier variant of the jelly-bean shaped car on Monday featuring power-steering in a bid to boost flagging sales.

The latest model, called Nano Twist, targets young people. It has power steering along with remote keyless entry, a four-speaker music system with bluetooth and a higher ground clearance for rough terrain.

Ranjit Yadav, president, passenger vehicles business, Tata Motors, said the car was “loaded with trendy features” to make it a “smart city car to hang out with”.

When Tata Motors — part of India’s giant Tata group — launched the Nano in 2009, analysts said it would revolutionise how millions in India travelled. But after poor sales in recent years, it became clear that the car’s unique selling point — its price — had backfired as aspirational Indians shied away from buying a vehicle tagged the world’s cheapest.

Tata Motors, part of the tea-to-steel Tata conglomerate, has been seeking to reposition the car in the market by adding features and making it trendier.

In December, Tata Motors sold just 554 Nano cars, down 75 percent from 2,202 cars a year earlier.

Tata Motors officials on Monday said some 45 percent of Nano drivers are between 18 and 34.

The Tata group’s former chairman Ratan Tata said shortly before his retirement in December 2012 it had been a mistake to market the Nano merely on its low-price, saying “various stigmas have been attached to it”.

He said the Nano had a “strong future” with an upmarket image and did not want it to be branded as the “world’s cheapest car”.

The purple-coloured Nano Twist will be sold at a price of 236,000 rupees ($3,800) while the base model costs around 150,000 rupees ($2,400).

Since its launch for just 100,000 rupees for the base model, the Nano has had several small makeovers,  including upgrades to its interior and a doubling of its warranty to four years.