Aston Villa’s European dream dies as riotous comeback falls just short

Au revoir, Aston Villa. But if there was a way to exit the Champions League, this was it. An epic, extraordinary effort was in vain and yet valiant and magnificent. They will not join the class of 1982 in tasting European glory, but there was a doomed glory to this. They beat the side Unai Emery declared the favourites to win the Champions League on the night. They threatened a comeback to rival the Remontada Luis Enrique’s Barcelona produced to beat Emery’s Paris Saint-Germain in 2017. Two goals behind on the evening, trailing 5-1 on aggregate, Villa scored three times in response.

Like Bayern Munich before them, Paris Saint-Germain were beaten in Birmingham. But if it was only over 90 minutes, there may be a legacy if the frailties Villa highlighted can be exposed by Arsenal or Real Madrid in the semi-final. They took on PSG’s running machines and rattled them with their relentlessness. A team with 17 wins in their previous 18 games ended up buffeted, relieved there were only three minutes of injury time.

For Villa, a first European Cup run in 42 years ended too soon. They departed rueing the injury-time goal Nuno Mendes scored in Paris and the reflexes of the outstanding Gianluigi Donnarumma showed at Villa Park but cherishing memories of a special night. “We can feel happy, we can feel proud,” said Emery. “In our process, tonight was the highest level we achieved.”

There was Marcus Rashford, playing like a man possessed, his revival accelerated as he tore into PSG. There was John McGinn, powering a fightback in idiosyncratic fashion. There was Youri Tielemans, his terrific season garnished with their first goal. There was Ezri Konsa, slotting in his shot to put Villa 3-2 up, giving them half an hour to score the goal that would earn extra time.

It eluded them. Indeed, the closest they came was courtesy of the man they borrowed from the French capital. PSG have conjured some tragicomic ways to go out of the Champions League in the last decade. Had this been powered by a goal from Marco Asensio, a player they own, it would have been among the most galling. But Donnarumma saved his shot. The hero of Anfield was PSG’s rescuer at Villa Park, eliminating an English club again.

It took a combination of an inspired goalkeeper and flying full-backs to finish Villa off. PSG’s goals in the first half-hour showed they were kings of the break. For Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, counter-attack may have been the best form of defence.

It illustrated the buccaneering brilliance of this PSG team. It is not in their nature to sit on a scoreline. Rather than defending a 3-1 lead, their full-backs ran from deep in their own half to score. The opener may have had a particular popularity on the other side of the English Channel.

Emi Martinez, the bete noire of the French public, was culpable on a day when his bravado backfired. PSG scored with the last attack of the game in Paris and their first of note in Birmingham. Luis Enrique had brought back Bradley Barcola and was vindicated as the winger sped away to cross, Martinez parried it out of Ousmane Dembele’s reach and Hakimi, who had run 80 yards from his own back four, followed up to score.

What one full-back could do, another could emulate. Mendes had struck in the first leg. He scored in the second, too, bending in a shot from the edge of the box, found by Dembele after a lightning break that carried PSG the length of the pitch.

So far, tres bien for PSG. “At 2-0, we nearly had Villa on the canvas,” said Luis Enrique. They did not supply the knockout blow after a superb start. His team combatted rain, wind and cold, with bare-chested Parisian supporters bouncing in inclement conditions. It contributed to a wonderful atmosphere. Villa Park has rarely been louder. They turned the volume up for ‘Hi Ho Aston Villa’. If PSG were not intimidated by the sound of Jeff Beck, the sight of John McGinn induced more worries.

The captain led the response. So did Tielemans. Aggrieved to be denied a penalty a minute earlier, he finished off a fine move that involved McGinn and Rashford, albeit aided by a telling touch off Pacho.

It was not the last one. The defender completed an unwanted double, McGinn’s shot looping up off him and over Donnarumma. A second goal in three minutes followed, Rashford surging the byline to pick out Konsa.

It came amid a fearless, ferocious start to the second half from Villa. Donnarumma, who had denied Pau Torres before the break, had to distinguish himself. Sandwiching McGinn’s goal, Donnarumma made very different but terrific saves from Rashford. The hero of Anfield clawed away a header from Tielemans. He denied Asensio. “Sensational,” said Luis Enrique.

But if the goalkeeper displayed defiance, PSG showed vulnerabilities. Here Villa were, attempting attack after attack, amassing 17 shots, Emery descending into histrionics on the touchline as the fourth goal would not come. “I didn’t think we would be knocked out at any moment,” said Luis Enrique. But an admission followed. “I don’t think this team has been so dominated by another team in this way.”

Villa nevertheless became just the fifth side to beat PSG this season. But like the fourth, Liverpool, they still went out over two legs. But PSG ended up celebrating a defeat, surviving the thriller at Villa, stumbling on where they seemed set to surge.

‘I needed heart surgery after swimming in polluted water’

A woman who was left needing heart surgery after developing blood poisoning is one of hundreds to fall ill after swimming in the UK’s polluted waters as sewage spills reached a decade high last year.

Campaign group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) received 1,853 sickness reports through its service app in 2024, with 331 people having to see a doctor and 79 per cent reporting that medical professionals had attributed their illness to sewage pollution.

Hundreds were diagnosed with gastroenteritis, chest infections and serious bacterial infections, with some having to be hospitalised. Overall, the reported instances of sickness led to nine years’ worth of sick days, which is estimated to have cost the economy £493,200.

SAS’s annual Water Quality Report revealed that sewage was pumped into British waterways 592,478 times for 4.7 million hours last year, despite the shareholders of private water companies being paid £1.2bn.

The water industry has failed to hit its pollution reduction targets and recorded 2,489 spills in 2024 – more than double the target set by the Environment Agency.

In one instance, Suzi Finlayson, a 42-year-old mother, was left requiring open-heart surgery after becoming critically ill from swimming in the water in Bognor Regis. Ms Finlayson, an avid sea swimmer, developed a blood infection which led to life-threatening infective endocarditis.

She said: “I became critically ill and spent six weeks in hospital care. This experience has completely changed my life. I’ve faced a long recovery, ongoing health challenges. This has impacted my family, and the financial strain of closing my business and being unable to fully return to work.”

“At the time of my infection, a sewage overflow from three pipes at Aldwick Beach lasted 343 hours (14 days), as reported by Southern Water. I was regularly sea-swimming two to three times a week and was advised that my infection could have entered through a cut, my skin, or my mouth.”

“In all honesty, I don’t trust the water industry. Lives and the environment are at risk and there is a complete lack of transparency, accountability and urgency when it comes to public health and environmental impact.”

In September 2023, 28-year-old Charlie Clarke became violently unwell after swimming at a popular spot, Clevedon Marine Lake, while training for an Ironman race. The following day, he collapsed and spent the next four months undergoing tests, which proved that a virus caught in the water had lowered his blood pressure and caused a minor episode in his heart.

Sickness reports are collected only through data provided to the Safer Seas and River Service app, meaning the number of people becoming unwell from poor water quality is likely to be substantially higher.

In England, the top bathing spots affected include Wallasey in Wirral, Merseyside, with 2,201 discharges, the Dart Estuary with 1,553 discharges and Plymouth Hoe East with South West Water recording 1,511 discharges.

Through a survey of 2,000 adults, it was also revealed that 27 per cent of people in England have considered not paying their bill due to the action of their water supplier, with just one third believing their supplies will take the necessary action to end sewage pollution.

It comes as water bills across England and Wales are set to rise by up to 47 per cent this month and as customers are due to pay £160 more in 2030 than in 2024.

The government and the Independent Water Commission are conducting a review of the future of the privatised water industry, with a public call for evidence closing on Wednesday 23 April.

As part of their annual report, SAS is calling for regulators to hold stakeholders to account, to ensure water companies are transparent around their finances, and to prevent financial rewards from being awarded if laws are broken.

Giles Bristow, CEO of SAS, said: “The water industry fails, fails and fails again and yet is permitted to come up smelling of roses, while our coastlines, rivers and lakes suffer the stench of sewage pollution. The numbers are staggering: record hours of sewage discharges, huge bill increases, thousands of people becoming ill and yet still the industry has the gall to pay out billions [in] billpayer money to shareholders.

“Things could not be clearer: this broken system needs urgent and radical reform.

“We can change things if we change the way our system is run. Across the globe, the norm is to manage water at a local level, rather than the 100 per cent private ownership model in place in England that has proved catastrophic for the environment and public health.

“The era of broken pipes and broken promises must end and be replaced by a fresh vision for water that ends pollution for profit and leads to a fair and transparent system – one that prioritises public health and value for customer money and delivers healthy coastlines, rivers and lakes.”

A Water UK spokesperson said: “We have been clear that the water system is not working and support the Independent Water Commission looking at every aspect of how the industry is regulated.

“However, no sewage spill is ever acceptable and water companies are investing £12bn to almost halve spills from storm overflows by 2030.

“This is part of the largest amount of money ever spent on the natural environment to help support economic growth, build more homes, secure our water supplies and end sewage entering our rivers and seas.”

UK’s oldest Indian restaurant under threat in row with Crown Estate

The UK’s oldest Indianrestaurant is facing eviction from its historic central London home of 99 years, in a row with King Charles’s property company.

Veeraswamy has been frequented by a host of royalty and dignitaries from Britain and overseas during its decades spent in Victory House at 99 Regent Street, with notable guests including Princess Anne, Winston Churchill, Indira Ghandi and Charlie Chaplin.

The restaurant even believes it was the only outside caterer ever to have been invited by Queen Elizabeth II to cater a function hosted by the late monarch at Buckingham Palace in 2008, an honour repeated in 2017 during a visit by the Indian president.

The Queen herself then accepted an invitatation to dine at the restaurant with Veeraswamy’s owners, but the plans were disrupted by the Covid pandemic, Ranjit Mathrani, co-owner of its parent company MW Eat told The Independent.

But Mr Mathrani now fears Veeraswamy will be forced to close after the Crown Estate opted not to renew the restaurant’s Regent Street lease, which expires in June – in a dispute over a space roughly the size of the back of a transit van.

After being informed of the decision last year, MW Eat is now taking the Crown Estate to court in a bid to delay their eviction – in the expectation that around two years would ideally be needed to reopen the restaurant at a new location.

Mr Mathrani warned that, if the Crown Estate refuses to allow Veeraswamy to remain at the site until it can find an alternative, it would be forced to close prior to reopening elsewhere, potentially putting the jobs of its 50 staff at risk.

“It would be the end of a very significant living institution,” said Mr Mathrani. “The thing about Veerswamy which is different is: it’s not a mausoleum – a sarcophagus. It’s a living, legendary institution which has been sustained and maintained over the years to be at the top of the game.”

The Crown Estate said it needs to carry out a major refurbishment of the building, with limited options because of its grade II-listed status. The offices on the upper floors of Victory House are reported to have been empty since late 2023 following a flood in the basement, which affected the power supply to parts of the building.

A Crown Estate spokesperson said: “We need to carry out a comprehensive refurbishment of Victory House. This includes a major upgrade to the offices and improving the entrance to make it more accessible.

“Due to the limited options available in this listed building we need to remove the entrance to the restaurant, which means we will not be able to offer Veeraswamy an extension when their lease expires.”

Instead, once the entrance has been removed in order to create a reception area for the offices above, the restaurant will also be converted into new offices as part of the planned renovation, according to The Times.

Mr Mathrani told the newspaper that the Crown Estate had insisted it would not be possible to create a new entrance for the building, and has so far been unable to find suitable place nearby for the restaurant to relocate to once the lease expires.

“I think it’s an outrage. This is cultural philistinism,” Mr Mathrani told The Independent.

“Here is an institution supposedly with some regard for history given its legacy and its social objectives. And it is basically subordinating everything to the homogeneity of having a uniform office building.”

In court documents, Mr Mathrani alleges that “Crown Estate representatives made it clear to me that the historical significance of Veeraswamy is not a material consideration for them, because they are currently driven by an imperative instruction to maximise financial returns to the Treasury”.

He adds: “The general view at the Crown Estates, is that they can only do this by maximising offices and retail, and not our restaurant. However, at no stage have they asked us to match the returns they would receive from the offices or the retail unit.”

Speaking to The Independent, Mr Mathrani said he believed that, “if the Crown were being constructive and were mindful of their social responsibilities”, they could achieve their objectives by keeping Veeraswamy at Regent Street.

“It’ll be a tragedy if we were to end up – as we’re going down the path of – with long expensive court cases of no benefit to either side,” he said, adding: “It is sad and unfortunate that they’ve been unwilling to actually engage … I hope it’s not too late for them to reconsider.”

Established in 1926 – on the same day Queen Elizabeth II was born – by retired Indian army officer Edward Palmer, grandson of the Mughal princess Faisan Nissa Begum, and taken over by MP William Stewart in 1934, Veeraswamy played host to a long list of famous figures over the past 10 decades, including Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier.

The restaurant is also said to have given rise to the tradition of pairing beer and curry, after Prince Axel of Denmark visited Veeraswamy and had a barrel of Carlsberg sent to the restaurant. It has held a Michelin star since 2016, and hosts around 80,000 diners each year, the majority of whom it says are visitors to London.

Noting that it “has a duty to generate value for the nation, while acting as responsible stewards for this historic part of London”, the Crown Estate added: “We appreciate this is upsetting for Veeraswamy and have offered to help find new premises elsewhere on our portfolio having explored other options to accommodate their needs.

“Veeraswamy has been a valued part of Regent Street for many years. We thank them and their customers for their contributions to the West End.”

What Miquita Oliver’s bankruptcy tells us about women and money

“I knew nothing about tax – absolutely nothing,” Miquita Oliver said on her Miss Me? podcast this week, reflecting on how she went bankrupt aged 27. “I come from parents who know nothing about tax. They didn’t think to ask me whether I was paying tax on the money that I was earning, and I was earning a lot of money. I didn’t ask.”

Now 40, Oliver explained how she was hit with a £170,000 bill after not paying her taxes for three years. As well as declaring bankruptcy, the presenter shared how she was forced to sell off personal possessions to repay her debt – adding that it wasn’t her accountant’s “fault” and that, despite his advice to put money aside each month, she “just stopped doing that” after a while.

Of course, her specific set of circumstances are not entirely relatable (sadly we’re not all “earning lots of money”, especially in our twenties), but her feeling that “this tax and VAT stuff is starting to intimidate me and scare me and I don’t understand it so I’m just going to start not paying it and hiding from it” certainly is. Particularly for women.

In 2024, the insolvency rate for women (26.5 per 10,000) was higher than the rate for men (22.1 per 10,000) – and this has been the case for 11 years running. The only age group where men had a higher insolvency rate was those aged 65 and over.

When it comes to bankruptcy, specifically, although historically more men have declared the financial status, the opposite has been true since 2021, with Covid exacerbating the issue.

Now, it may be tempting to fall into the gender stereotype trap – you know, the whole “girl math” trope, or the idea that women “love to shop”, or that we’re “no good with money”. But it’s not as simple as that.

While many governments have outlined various reforms, taxation laws and policies are still laden with both explicit and implicit gender biases. These systemic imbalances also extend to cultural ones, meaning that, still, women bear the brunt and financial illiteracy is rife.

I know I grappled with personal finance when I was younger. Although I had a part-time job from the age of 12 and felt relatively adept at managing money and budgeting, I had no clue where to begin with student finance when I set off for university. My parents couldn’t help me either – not through lack of desire, but because I was the first generation in my family to go. And although my sixth form was very adamant we all went on to further education, there was little provided in the way of practical help.

Going freelance full-time two years ago also meant expanding my knowledge of tax and self-assessments, and it took a colleague of mine to tell me about things like plugging gaps in my National Insurance contributions and single occupancy council tax discounts for me to fully take control of my finances. I’ve never been in debt (beyond my student loan), but I wouldn’t say I was savvy when it comes to money either.

Then there are the implications of joint taxation, where married couples or civil partners file joint declarations, which can decrease their overall tax burden for the household. In some instances, though, where pay disparity between partners is significant, the secondary earner or lower income earner – which tends to be women, with the current gender pay gap standing at 7 per cent – can be subject to a disproportionately higher marginal tax rate.

This, combined with the fact that women are eight times more likely to be the primary caregiver for children and also more likely to care for elderly family members (whether or not their blood relatives) – as well as the newly-announced welfare cuts, pension reforms, and ridiculously high childcare costs – deters them from entering full-time employment in the first place. Even those who do are more likely than not to be self-employed and face the HMRC nightmare that is self-assessment, because of their caregiver responsibilities. And that’s before we even get into how inheritance tax, capital gains tax, property ownership and consumption skew things, or how single mothers shoulder even more of the burden.

Yes, it could be argued that the knowledge gap extends beyond just women – only 6 per cent of 16-24-year-olds say they learnt about finance at school – and things like socio-economic background also factor in. But there’s still evidence that women and girls are not only disproportionately affected by systems in place, the assumption remains that men and boys should learn about things like taxes, mortgages and investing, because they are the main breadwinners.

This is such a disservice – not just because it limits women and makes them more susceptible to debt, but because it adds yet another obstacle when it comes to entering the workforce and enjoying a successful career. On the surface, it seems as though more women are becoming financially independent and have more agency when it comes to work and motherhood, among other things. But in reality, we’re still met with all kinds of setbacks.

Obama condemns ‘ham-handed’ Harvard funding freeze

President Donald Trump is exploring the legality of whether he can deport U.S. citizens to prisons in Central American countries, the White House said Tuesday during the press briefing.

“It’s another question that the president has raised,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said when asked if Trump currently has the authority or would need to amend the law to do so.

“It’s a legal question that the president is looking into,” Leavitt added.

She said that Trump “would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.”

Meanwhile, former president Barack Obama has condemned the Trump administration’s freezing of $2.3 billion in funding to Harvard University as “unlawful” and “ham-handed.”

The White House has frozen more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts for Harvard University after the school refused to comply with a long list of demands.

The university said it would not “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights” after the administration demanded it make sweeping changes to its leadership, governance, and admissions.

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If Starmer pulls off a trade deal with the US, he’ll seal his legacy

Ever since the result of the Brexit referendum pushed the question towards the top of Britain’s economic agenda, albeit not a constant presence there, a free trade agreement with the United States has become a pressing concern for successive prime ministers. Until now – and in the highly unlikely circumstances of a global trade war unleashed by an increasingly erratic White House – it has rarely been much of a realistic prospect. But things may be stirring.

The continuing warm relationship between Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump, combined with some recent remarks from the US vice-president, JD Vance, suggest that some sort of trade deal from the most protectionist American government since Herbert Hoover may be in the offing.

Potentially, this is very good news for a British government searching everywhere for anything that will induce the anaemic British economy to grow more vigorously. Forging stronger links with what remains – even under the Trump administration’s mismanagement – the most dynamic economy on earth sounds like a promising project. Yet, a glance at the detail also means the British government should approach the matter with extreme caution.

According to his vice-president, Mr Trump is “working very hard” with the Starmer government and is fuelled by a cocktail of family links (his mother was from Skye), an affection for the House of Windsor, and the affinities felt towards a fellow member of the Anglosphere.

In the case of Sir Keir, the push for closer economic relations is driven by something closer to desperation, as he watches the already miserable prospects for his economy, and thus the investment in public services, which worsen with every update delivered by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

Economically, a mutually advantageous trade deal would not only reverse the harms that the latest Trump tariffs will inflict on the British economy and mitigate Brexit, but also open up new markets – especially in the service sectors the UK excels in, and which seem to trouble Mr Trump much less than traditional manufacturing, where the UK doesn’t usually enjoy much comparative advantage. If skilfully managed, it might not complicate the Brexit “reset” Sir Keir promised but shows little sign of completing.

In the post-Brexit world, in which the UK has taken the self-harming step of erecting trade barriers with its closest and most important trading partner, the EU, an ambitious US-UK economic alliance would not only boost economic growth and prosperity, steering the economy away from recession; it would also be an almost unimaginable political prize for the prime minister himself. He would achieve what eluded all of his immediate Conservative predecessors – and the irony that he, such a passionate Remainer, should have done so need not embarrass him.

If, as is sadly obvious, the UK cannot return to the excellent terms of membership that prevailed before, and only the most modest Brexit reset is a realistic prospect, then the US deal is actually the best prospect available among major economies. After all, Ms Reeves’s recent trade mission to Beijing yielded relatively little, and after the British Steel debacle, a trade treaty with China looks even less likely.

Meanwhile, the free trade agreement with India remains snagged on immigration and visas for Indian postgraduate workers, and Japan has already concluded its UK deal, with UK membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership already secured.

Yet, the suspicion must be that any deal that recommends itself to the “America First” Mr Trump and Mr Vance would not necessarily be advantageous to the British. The list of drawbacks is long. Farmers, already suffering from higher costs, the “tractor tax” on inheritance, and the effects of free trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, would be hard hit by cheaper US meat, poultry and grains.

So, too, would the NHS, which would have to pay more for its drugs and open itself up to American-based sub-contractors.

Given his preference to link trade to other policy areas, Mr Trump might also demand that the UK ramp up defence spending more rapidly, cut taxes on the American tech giants, deregulate artificial intelligence and biotech, scrap hate speech laws, and impose punitive tariffs on China in concert with America.

Consumers might or might not like the option of buying cheap chlorinated chicken; however, if US genetically modified grains enter the British food manufacturing chains, they’d be hard-pressed to avoid these “Frankenfoods”. The White House, purely based on a misunderstanding of how it works, might even insist that US goods and services be exempt from VAT.

So the US trade deal – so sought after post-Brexit – may, in other words, not be as appetising as was once imagined, and could prove so politically toxic as to be unacceptable.

A more limited exercise on new technologies would hold better prospects for the future, without the same threat to the British tradition of universal healthcare and high welfare standards for farm animals – both holding near-religious status.

Besides, if the last few weeks are anything to go by, any trade treaty signed by President Trump might not have much of a shelf life, given how casually he tossed away the trade treaty with Canada and Mexico he negotiated in his first term and his chaotic behaviour since “Liberation Day”.

Britain shouldn’t get overexcited about President Trump coming to the rescue. In this case, failure to get a trade deal might be a blessing.

Britain still has free speech – as Steve Bray has shown loud and clear

Steve Bray, known to most as the “Stop Brexit Man” after his years-long noisy campaign against Britain’s departure from the European Union, has won his latest legal case.

He has been cleared of failing to follow a police order, namely to stop being quite so loud in the environs of parliament. Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in quiet deliberation, agreed with Bray’s arguments that he has the right to protest at any given level of decibels.

Deputy District Judge Anthony Woodcock said Bray “admitted that he is ‘anti-Tory’ … He believes his is an important message to disseminate. He needs the volume that he uses to get the message across from Parliament Street to the Palace of Westminster.”

After nearly a decade as a fixture on the streets and public spaces around Whitehall – and too divisive and annoying to be termed a “national treasure” – Bray has at least become a part of Britain’s constitution…

By offering a supposedly inappropriate musical accompaniment to then prime minister Rishi Sunak’s entry into the House of Commons on 20 March 2024. It was not a legal argument, but Bray justified blasting the Darth Vader theme in the general direction of the Palace of Westminster on the grounds that Sunak is a Star Wars fan (a matter of public knowledge and not in doubt). When he followed up with The Muppet Show theme during Prime Minister’s Questions, police confiscated his loudspeakers.

Officers had previously issued Bray a map of permitted areas for his protests, using a Westminster Council by-law. But that was no match for the amateur human rights lawyer. He told them the map was inaccurate and, as an obiter dictum, that the officers could “stick it where the sun don’t shine”.

If authorities now choose to appeal this week’s judgment, the arguments could go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights (which, let’s face it, he’d enjoy … though in his absence, Westminster would be a bit more tranquil.)

It proves that, contrary to what Elon Musk and JD Vance claim, free speech is alive and well in Britain – loud and clear.

By no means. A price of (extremely loud) free speech is disruption to anyone working or living in the area, who must endure a racket which, like a bad busker knocking out Oasis, could be viewed as a form of torture.

In court, Bray apologised to those affected. Lee Anderson, the Tory/Brexit Party/Reform UK MP who sometimes had testy exchanges with Bray, condemned the judgment: “As well as being a public nuisance, Steve Bray is also known as a sponging parasite who relies on dimwitted do-gooders to subsidise his lifestyle. I suspect Bray is probably a person of interest to the HMRC, as are many others who scrounge an existence through political campaigning. It is time for transparency and people like Bray should publish all their donations just like a charity has to. I suspect he has trousered hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s about time he spent some of it on new clothes and toiletries.”

Anderson provided no evidence for his claims, and his arguments did not address the legal right to say things that Reform UK might not like.

Plenty of D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” as Labour came closer to power, while Liz Truss had to compete with Kaiser Chiefs’ “I Predict a Riot” during appearances in Downing Street in her brief premiership. Most notably, Yakety Sax – used on The Benny Hill Show – eradicated any vestigial dignity during Boris Johnson’s resignation statement.

Protest and survive. Bray’s case adds to the corpus of legal protections for awkward dissent. Brian Haw, the man who spent about a decade living in a tent on Parliament Square in protest against the Iraq war, similarly survived numerous legal attempts to dislodge him. In 2005, then home secretary David Blunkett drafted an act of parliament apparently specially designed to end Haw’s small and untidy encampment; the attempt failed because someone failed to make the legislation retrospective.

Squares and streets around Westminster have always been the scenes of marches, protests – and the odd riot – and will continue to do so. For Steve Bray, things can hardly get better; he’ll be fine now –unless Lee Anderson ever gets to be home secretary.