The_Guardian(2014-02-13)

Section:GDN BE PaGe:1 Edition Date:140213 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 12/2/2014 21:42 cYanmaGentaYellowblack 1 2 A * Haroon Siddique Hundred-mile an hour winds buffeted Wales yesterday , leaving more than 50,000 people without power supplies, and caused chaos on the road and rail networks in north-west England. A high of 108mph was recorded in Aberdaron, as the Met Offi ce issued a rare red warning for Wales and north-west England , indicating people should take action because the winds were so strong that there was a likely risk to life. As more weather-related misery over- whelmed the country on the back of the devastating fl ooding, a Met Offi ce fore- caster, Kirk Waite, said: “Red warnings are a very rare thing for us to issue. We only issue them when we do think there is a need to take action to preserve life.” He said the last such warning was issued due to snow in January last year. Waite added the winds were expected to die down in England and Wales over- night on Wednesday and during the day on Thursday – but he went on to warn that there would be fresh problems in the shape of wintry showers which would bring a risk of ice. Rain and strong winds are then expected to return on Friday and likely to exacerbate flooding in areas already aff ected – as the level on the river Severn in Worcestershire reached what was thought Continued on page 7 ≥ Interest rates on hold as Bank says recovery ‘unsustainable’ Eye of the storm: hurricane-force winds lash Britain as fl oods continue • No rise until after 2015 general election • UK economy still short of momentum xx≥ Larry Elliott and Angela Monaghan Britain’s ultra-low interest rates will remain in force until after next year’s gen- eral election, the governor of the Bank of England signalled yesterday as he warned that economic recovery was “neither bal- anced nor sustainable”. Mark Carney left the City convinced that borrowing costs would be pegged at 0.5% for the rest of 2014 and beyond after saying that the UK could not cope with an end to the emergency measures adopted fi ve years ago to counter the worst reces- sion since the second world war. The governor used the launch of the Bank’s quarterly infl ation report to reas- sure businesses and households that even when rates do rise, the increase will be gradual and modest. Carney insisted that the nine-strong monetary policy commit- tee “will not take risks with this recovery” and indicated that it was comfortable with the City’s view that interest rates would not rise before the spring of 2015 and then rise gently to 2% by 2017. “A few quarters of above-trend growth driven by household spending are a good start but they aren’t sufficient for sus- tained momentum,” Carney said. “For a sustained and balanced recovery, the degree of stimulus will need to remain exceptional for some time.” Jessica Hinds at Capital Economics said that interest rates were unlikely to rise until late 2015 because of a lack of infl a- tionary pressure in the UK. “The [Bank’s] monetary policy commit- tee expects infl ation to hover around the 2% target for the next three years even if interest rates remain at 0.5%. Our forecast Continued on page 2 ≥ is for infl ation to be even lower. Accord- ingly, we continue to think that interest rates will remain on hold until the fourth quarter of 2015.” Philip Shaw, economist at Investec, is expecting the fi rst rate rise in the third quarter of next year. Labour’s shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, agreed with Carney that the recovery was unbalanced and said it was up to the gov- ernment to do more to address the issue. “This is not yet a recovery for ordinary working people who are still facing a cost- of-living crisis. Monetary policy alone can- not secure a strong and balanced recovery and earn our way to higher living stand- ards for the many, not just a few at the top. The chancellor also needs to act.” Carney emphasised that the UK econ- omy is still smaller than it was before the financial crisis took hold in 2008, with below infl ation wage growth and a limited pick-up in business investment. He said there were also mounting risks to the global economy posed by problems in emerging market economies. The Bank announced significant changes to its “forward guidance” strategy after being forced to abandon its reliance on unemployment as a guide to interest- rate policy as a result of the sharper-than- expected fall in joblessness since the sum- mer of 2013. Under the new approach, Threadneedle Street will look at 20 indicators of how well the economy is performing to judge what spare capacity remains to be used up following the below-par performance of the UK during the deep slump of 2008-09 and the sluggish recovery that followed. A composite satellite image shows the storm, with 100mph winds, approaching. Large parts of Britain were on red alert, as buildings and trees were expected to be damaged in the gusts Photograph: Nasa 6-7≥ ‘Whacking Phoenix?’ An interview with Siri £1.60 Thursday 13.02.14 Published in London and Manchester Eyewitness picture exclusive But can you name the show? ‘Wh An The incredible hulks In praise of brutalism Blown out Arsenal miss their chance to go top in stormy night at the Emirates theguardian.com (Ch. Islands £2.00) The Olivier awards 2014 Section:GDN BE PaGe:2 Edition Date:140213 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 12/2/2014 20:59 cYanmaGentaYellowblack *2 The Guardian | Thursday 13 February 2014 The Guardian Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Telephone: 020 3353 2000 Fax: 020 7837 2114 Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. 020 3353 2000. Fax 020 7837 2114. In Manchester: Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Telephone Sales: London 020 3353 3400; Manchester 0161 908 3800. theguardian.com. The Guardian lists links to third-party websites, but does not endorse them or guarantee their authenticity or accuracy. Missing sections: 0800 839 100. Back issues from Historic Newspapers: 0870 165 1470. guardian.backissuenewspapers.co.uk. The Guardian is published by Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, and at Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Printed at Guardian Print Centre, Rick Roberts Way, Stratford, London E15 2GN; Guardian Print Centre North, Longbridge Road, Manchester M17 1SN; and at Carn Web, 2 Esky Drive, Carn, Portadown, Craigavon, County Armagh BT63 5YY. No. 52,082, Thursday 13 February 2014. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Offi ce ISSN 0261-3077 NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2012 was 78%   Bank of England says recovery ‘unsustainable’ The Bank estimates that the slack amounts to 1%-1.5% of national income, which will be used up only gradually as the economy grows over the next three years. Threadneedle Street believes only half the spare capacity will have been used up by the end of 2014, even though it has raised its 2014 growth forecast from 2.8% in November to 3.4% – much higher than currently expected by the Treasury or the International Monetary Fund. The Bank is expecting the economy to grow by 2.7% in 2015 and by 2.8% in 2016. The report noted that a lack of infl ation- ary pressure – with infl ation back at the 2% target in December for the fi rst time in four years – spare capacity in the economy, and “headwinds” at home and abroad, meant that “bank rate may need to remain at low levels for some time to come”. It continued: “Even when the economy has returned to normal levels of capacity and inflation is close to the target, the appropriate level of Bank Rate is likely to be materially below the 5% level set on average by the [ monetary policy] com- mittee prior to the crisis. “Raising bank rate gradually would guard against the risk that, after a pro- longed period of exceptionally low inter- est rates, increases in Bank rate have a big- ger impact than expected on output and spending.” The February infl ation report provided the most detailed forecasts yet from the Bank, which is pencilling in a big surge in both business and housing investment of 11.5% and 23% respectively this year. Consumers are expected to run down their savings to compensate for another year of weak earnings growth. Carney said forward guidance was working, and that it was now entering a new phase in which the Bank provided information about how and at what pace it would raise interest rates. The governor said uncertainty about interest rates has fallen and “most impor- tantly, businesses have understood the guidance.” Last summer the Bank would consider a rate rise only when the unemployment rate – then 7.8% – fell to 7%. At that time it was not expecting the jobless rate to fall to the threshold until early 2016. The MPC now expects the next set of offi cial fi gures to show the rate fell to 7% in January , less than six months after the policy was set. Despite his protestations economists said this next “phase” of guidance was more complicated, not least because the output gap could not be measured. “The latest revised forward guidance from the MPC has become even more complex and provides little clarity on the key issue of how the committee will man- age the process of raising interest rates,” said Andrew Sentance, senior economic adviser at PwC and a former rates-setter at the Bank. The Bank expects that wage growth will surpass inflation at some point in the second half of the year – easing the squeeze on household budgets – although it stressed that would be dependent on a pickup in productivity which has been weak in the UK. “We are not complacent about this recovery at all. We are serene but not complacent. We need to see productivity come in to validate wage expectations,” Carney said. Leader comment, page 34 ≥ ← continued from page 1 Take internet governance away from US after NSA scandal, says Brussels Ian Traynor Brussels The mass surveillance carried out by the US National Security Agency means that governance of the internet has to be made more international and less dominated by America, the European Union’s executive has declared . Setting out proposals on how the world wide web should function and be regu- lated, the European commission called for a shift away from the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ( Icann ), which is subject to US law, is contracted by the US administra- tion and is empowered to supervise how digital traffi c operates. “R evelations of large-scale surveillance have called into question the stewardship of the US when it comes to internet gov- ernance,” said the commission. “Given the US-centric model of inter- net governance currently in place, it is necessary to broker a smooth transition to a more global model while at the same time protecting the underlying values of open multi-stakeholder governance … “Large-scale surveillance and intel- ligence activities have led to a loss of confi dence in the internet and its present governance arrangements.” Besides criticising US domination of how the internet and digital traffic are organised, including the allocation and determination of domain names, the Brussels institution also warned against increasing governmental attempts to control the internet, as in China, Russia, Iran and increasingly Turkey, which passed a stringent law last week curbing online freedoms. “Governments have a crucial role to play, but top-down approaches are not the right answer. We must strengthen the multi-stakeholder model,” said Neelie Kroes, the commissioner for digital aff airs. “Our fundamental freedoms and human rights are not negotiable. They must be protected online.” She spoke out against giving the United Nations the power to organise and super- vise the internet or to grant such authority to the International Telecommunications Union, voicing fears that it would confer too much power on governments. The commission called for a clear time- line for diluting US authority over Icann and making it more “global”; for agree- ment on “a set of principles of internet governance to safeguard the open and unfragmented nature of the internet”; and a mediation body that would scruti- nise confl icts arising from contradictory national jurisdictions over the internet. Decisions over domain names and IP addresses should also be globalised, Brussels said. “The next two years will be critical in redrawing the global map of internet governance,” said Kroes. Brussels is to take its proposals to an international conference on the issue in Brazil in April. Brazil, angered by the NSA revelations, has been highly critical of the US role in internet governance. “Nearly every person has an interest in keeping the internet open, whether this is an economic, social or human rights interest,” said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP who sits on an international body examining internet governance. “Governments are trying to bring the internet under national control. States like Russia and China use the argument of increasing cyber-security to increase control over their own population. Organi- sations such as Icann, which registers domain names worldwide, currently func- tion under US law. That has to change.” EU chiefs attack American control of domain names Warning over growing web censorship around world The European parliament has ditched demands that EU governments grant guarantees of asylum and security to the whistleblower Edward Snowden . The parliament’s civil liberties committee voted last night on more than 500 amendments to the fi rst par- liamentary inquiry into the NSA and GCHQ scandal, a 60-page report that is damning about the scale and the impact of the mass surveillance. But there was no consensus on an amendment proposed by the Greens calling on EU governments to assure Snowden of his safety should he emerge from hiding in Russia and come to Europe. Amid what MEPs described as intense pressure from national governments , opposition from the mainstream centre-right and social democrats meant the amendment had no chance of passing. Instead of the asylum call the report seeks interna- tional protections for whistleblowers without mentioning Snowden by name. Ian Traynor Snowden rebuff ed Bank of England governor Mark Carney tried to reassure busi- nesses that when rates do rise it would be gradual Section:GDN BE PaGe:3 Edition Date:140213 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 12/2/2014 21:34 cYanmaGentaYellowblack *The Guardian | Thursday 13 February 2014 3 News From Young Vic to Ground Zero: artistic director sets his sights on new heights Lan to oversee arts hub at One World Trade Center New challenge will be ‘an enormous job,’ he says Mark Brown Arts correspondent One of the most respected fi gures in Brit- ish theatre is to take on the challenge of running the planned performing arts cen- tre that will be a key part of the redevelop- ment of Ground Zero in New York. David Lan, who has won plaudits since joining the Young Vic in south London more than a decade ago, will today be named as the consulting artistic director of the Frank Gehry-designed arts complex that will be built close to One World Trade Center . Because the building will not open until at least 2018, it will be a part-time job and Lan stressed he will not be giving up his day job in London any time soon. Nevertheless, the New York project “is an enormous job ”, he said, “and a fasci- nating one”. Lan has in fact been doing the job since September but it was not publicised because he and his team needed to get proposals in place and get them approved by the board of trustees, he said. “Our plans were largely not what they were expecting, so we needed to work up the arguments.” A performing arts centre has long been part of the Daniel Libeskind masterplan for the World Trade Center site. It will be only 60ft away from what is the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere and will have three fl exible 550, 250 and 150-capacity auditoriums. From the very start there has been a will to have culture and the arts represented in the redevelopment plans . What form that took has changed many times. At one stage a future home for the New York City Opera was talked about and after that the idea that the Joyce theatre would create an international dance centre. Now the plan is for a multidisciplinary centre with Lan at the artistic helm . Like the Young Vic, which opened in its present form in 2006 after major redevelopment, it will be more than a theatre – it will be a place to socialise, meet and collaborate and be open from breakfast to night. Having said that, Lan stressed: “What we’re really not doing is transplanting the Young Vic to downtown Manhattan, but we are starting from the same position we started 14-15 years ago. Let’s think about who is there, let’s think about the work we want to make, let’s think who we want to talk to.” Lan said the centre was “for New York and for New York artists” but the main job would be “enabling collaboration between American artists and people in Europe, China, South America, wherever”. Key to the project is that it will be premiering its own works. The centre is slap-bang in Manhattan’s fi nancial district but the hope is to attract a diverse audience who want to keep com- ing back. Lan said he had spent a lot of time walking between the Hudson and East rivers and down to Battery Park and had discovered “a genuinely diverse” neigh- bourhood. Then there’s the enormous numbers that come in from Brooklyn and New Jersey and work there, at every level. Lan was born in South Africa and moved to London in 1972. He has run the Young Vic since 2000 and has no intention of giv- ing that up, he said, although there may be a time when he has to make a choice. “I’m not even thinking about it. I have a very good time here and am planning next year and have ideas for the year after that. Let’s see how we go,” he said. Lan was headhunted by the PAC’s director, Maggie Boepple, who knows the Young Vic well from her time in London as a senior adviser to Transport for London when Ken Livingstone was mayor. Boepple said when she first started thinking who could do the job, Lan’s name was one of the ones she wrote down. “It is not that we are copying it, but I’ve long wanted a place like the Young Vic in New York.” She did not ask one of the “great Amer- ican artistic directors” because the job would be part time – “we would be a little brother or sister of whatever they were running. Also we weren’t going to hire a full-time artistic director because they would go out of their minds, this isn’t going to open until about 2018.” David Lan, who has in fact been the consulting artistic director of the new performing arts centre since September Photo: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Appreciation London’s loss is New York’s gain It comes as no surprise to learn that David Lan has been appointed as a con- sulting artistic director to the new team at the World Trade Center. Although Lan has worked as a dramatist, director and fi lm-maker, it is as a producer and talent-promoter that he has excelled in his tenure at the Young Vic. Although he doesn’t look like a showman, he has a Diaghilev-like fl air for bringing artists together. He once told me that he saw the Young Vic as a “director’s theatre” in contrast, say, to a “writer’s theatre” like the Royal Court. Over the past decade or m