Epstein threatened Duchess of York in ‘Hannibal Lecter-style’ call

The Duchess of York sent a sympathetic email to Jeffrey Epstein because he threatened to “destroy her” in a “Hannibal Lecter-style” phone call.

A spokesperson for Sarah Ferguson said that the convicted paedophile was angry after she said in a 2011 interview that she had made a “terrible, terrible error of judgment” in accepting £15,000 from him to pay off her debts.

Epstein reportedly made a “chilling” phone call to Ms Ferguson in which he threatened to take legal action, according to The Telegraph.

It comes after the Duchess faced criticism over an email she sent to Epstein in 2011, where she called him a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend” – just weeks after she told reporters she would “never have anything to do with” the convicted sex offender again.

Ms Ferguson has since been dropped by seven charities, who have said it would be “inappropriate” for her to remain as their patron or ambassador following the revelation.

Her spokesperson told The Telegraph: “People don’t understand how terrible Epstein was. I can remember everything about that call.

“It was a chilling call and I’m surprised anybody was ever friends with him given the way he talked to me.

“He said he would destroy the York family and he was quite clear on that. He said he would destroy me. He wasn’t shouting. He had a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. It was very cold and calm and really menacing and nasty.”

The spokesperson said it was understandable why the Duchess had sent the placating email, according to the newspaper, because of his threat to ruin her life and her family’s; the duchess shares two daughters with the Duke of York, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice.

The Independent has approached the Duchess of York’s spokesperson for comment.

Children’s hospice Julia’s House announced on Monday that it had cut ties with the duchess, followed by food allergy charity The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, Prevent Breast Cancer, the Teenage Cancer Trust, the British Heart Foundation, and The Children’s Literacy Charity.

The National Foundation for Retired Service Animals (NFRSA) has also dropped Ms Ferguson, according to the BBC.

The duchess gave an interview to the Evening Standard on 7 March 2011 in which she expressed remorse for her connection with the disgraced financier.

“I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say,” she told the newspaper. “Whenever I can, I will repay the money and have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.”

Little over a month later, reports suggest the duchess sent an email from her private account to the convicted paedophile, where she apologised for her comments and told him she had felt “broken and lost” after being told not to associate with him.

The email is reported to have read: “I know you feel hellaciously let down by me. And I must humbly apologise to you and your heart for that. You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family. I am apologising to you today for not replying to your email or reaching out to you.

“I was bedridden with fear. I was paralysed. I was advised, in no uncertain terms, to have nothing to do with you and to not speak or email you. And if I did – I would cause more problems to you, the duke and myself. I was broken and lost. So please understand. I didn’t want to hurt Andrew one more time. I was in overriding fear. I am sorry.”

Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. The death was ruled a suicide.

Trump slams Putin’s ‘bad leadership’ in latest threat against Russia

Donald Trump has targeted Russian leader Vladimir Putin for his “bad leadership” as he issued a fresh threat of “powerful tariffs” on Moscow.

During a nearly hour-long speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the US president said Russia’s war in Ukraine is “making them look bad” because it was “supposed to be a little skirmish”.

“It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country. The only question now is how many lives will be needlessly lost on both sides,” he added claiming that Russian forces have been killing between 5,000 to 7,000 young soldiers “on both sides every single week”.

The US president also said Washington is “fully prepared to impose a strong round of powerful tariffs”.

But for tariffs to be effective European countries would need to follow suit, he said, as he slammed the continued import of Russian oil as “embarassing”.

Trump’s comments came as Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said she “cannot rule out” Russian involvement after Copenhagen Airport was shut down due to drone sightings on Monday evening.

“This is a serious attack on critical Danish infrastructure.”

Epping hotel asylum seeker jailed for sexually assaulting girl

An asylum seeker hotel resident has been jailed for 12 months for sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl, which sparked multiple demonstrations in Essex.

Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat days before the incidents, was described as “manipulative” and with a “poor regard for women” after being found guilty of five offences.

The 38-year-old told two teenagers he wanted to “have a baby with each of them” and attempted to kiss them, before going on to put his hand on one of the girls’ thighs and stroke her hair, his trial was told.

The defendant, who was a “teacher of sports” in his home country, was also found to have sexually assaulted a woman by trying to kiss her, putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.

During his sentencing hearing, the court heard that Kebatu was aware of the unrest his offending had caused, but had sought to portray himself as a “scapegoat” and now wished to be deported.

The judge also said that while Kebatu had tried to take his own life while on remand in prison, he could not suspend the 12-month sentence as there was “no realistic prospect” of his being rehabilitated.

In a victim impact statement, the 14-year-old girl said she is now “checking over my shoulder” when she is out with friends, and that wearing a skirt now makes her feel “vulnerable and exposed”.

She added: “Seeing the bench [where the sexual assault took place] reminds me of everything that happened.

“I’m aware there have been protests because of what has happened – I’m lucky that I was not in the country when that happened.”

Meanwhile, his adult victim said she was left feeling both “angered and frustrated” by the incident.

“He did not even appear to know that what he’s done was wrong,” she said.

“The incident has left me feeling worried to leave my house. I think about this incident most nights before bed.”

The Bell Hotel resident’s behaviour in July led to protesters and counterprotesters taking to the streets in Epping and eventually outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.

Epping Forest District Council is taking legal action against Somani Hotels over the use of the Bell Hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers, and could still be granted an injunction when a full hearing takes place on 13 October.

Kebatu’s trial was told he was offered pizza by the 14-year-old victim shortly before he tried to kiss her on 7 July.

The court heard Kebatu had made inappropriate comments to the girl, such as “come back to Africa, you would be a good wife”, and “do you want to come to the Bell Hotel to have babies, then we could go to Kenya with each other?”.

The girl told police she “froze” as the defendant sexually assaulted her and had told Kebatu, “No, I’m 14,” when he spotted her again in Epping the following day.

The court heard his response to the teenager was: “No, no, it doesn’t matter, you could come back to the Bell Hotel with me.”

An adult member of the public was also sexually assaulted by Kebatu on 8 July during an incident in which he touched her leg and tried to kiss her when she offered to help him with his CV.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she felt “shocked” and “uncomfortable” at his behaviour.

The adult victim told the court she confronted Kebatu when she saw him speaking to a “young schoolgirl”.

She said the defendant ran away from the initial confrontation, but she caught up with him near the Bell Hotel while on a 999 call with police.

The woman told the trial: “It was a lot of begging, pleading and apologising, and a lot of ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to go, it was a mistake’ – along those lines.”

Footage of Kebatu’s arrest showed him appearing to become tearful after he was handcuffed by an officer, with the defendant eventually getting on his knees on the pavement next to a police car.

Molly Dyas, mitigating for Kebatu, said the defendant’s “firm wish is to be deported as soon as possible”.

She told Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court: “That was his view before the trial, and that remains his view today.”

She said he was an “asylum seeker who made a difficult and lengthy journey from east Africa, including the last part on a small boat”.

She said he had no previous convictions recorded, “including in the European countries he travelled through to reach the UK”.

District judge Christopher Williams found Kebatu guilty of two counts of sexual assault, one count of attempted sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of harassment without violence.

Sentencing him, the judge said he agreed with the author of the pre-sentencing report that Kebatu was “manipulative” when interviewed, after he stated his lack of English and mental health as a reason for not remembering what had happened.

He said: “It’s evident to me that your shame and remorse isn’t because of the offences you’ve committed but because of the impact they’ve had.”

The judge said Kebatu told a probation officer he was “aware of the unrest that [the] offending had caused” and knew that “other law-abiding asylum seekers were impacted by the offending”.

Kebatu must sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years, and has been made subject to a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

He also ordered that Kebatu pay £650 prosecution costs and a £187 victim surcharge.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Justice has now been served and the government must now deport this criminal immediately.

“The reality is this vile crime should never have been allowed to happen.”

A conservative shift could undermine the Turner Prize’s radical legacy

Say what you like about the artists on this year’s Turner Prize shortlist: they know how to make a physical impact. Zadie Xa hangs her visionary paintings on acid-tinged walls (and I mean acid in that sense) above a reflective gold floor that seems to double the size of the already large space. Rene Matić’s photographs of political demonstrations and queer subculture come with a soundscape of contemporary voices loud enough to make your hair stand on end, while Nnena Kalu’s suspended sculptures, formed from miles of VHS cassette tape, clingfilm and gauzy material, look fantastic against the neo-Baroque wood panelling of Bradford’s Cartwright Hall.

True to recent form, Britain’s best-known art prize seems as if it’s out to make some kind of point with the demographic of its 2025 shortlist: none of the four nominees have typically British names, one is non-binary, and another is neurodivergent. Way more important, however, is that this feels like the year in which artists have returned to the act of physically making things. After years when it was dominated by those whose work recontextualised existing objects (see 2024’s winning installation by Jasleen Kaur, which featured a car draped in a doily), the shortlist this year comprises two painters – in the oil-on-canvas sense – and a sculptor. Only one artist, the photographer Matić, works with “non-traditional materials”.

There’s a generally upbeat vibe, and a sense – barely conceivable in the light of most recent Turner Prize exhibitions – that we can approach the event through the lens of good, old-fashioned visual pleasure. Perish the thought.

That said, there’s little here that is remotely traditional. The setting for Korean-Canadian Xa’s mythological paintings feels more like some psychedelic nightclub than an art display. Glasgow-born Kalu’s weightless cocoons, meanwhile, are formed through a single hand-winding process that feels a world away from sculpture in the marble-and-chisel sense. And it hardly seems to matter whether or not Matić, from Cambridgeshire, who at 28 is the second-youngest artist ever to be shortlisted for the Turner, took their photographs of graffitied slogans and snogging gay clubbers themselves. These images feel like spontaneous emanations of the contemporary British street rather than “art photography”.

In this atmosphere of jubilant boundary-breaking, the enigmatic modern “history” paintings of the bookies’ favourite, Mohammed Sami, who was born in Baghdad, look a shade tight and careful, even academic. Sami’s finely crafted, peopleless meditations on Iraq’s troubled past and present are some of the most admired products of what is often referred to as a resurgence in British painting: certainly there has been a vast increase in the number of young artists daubing on canvas over the last few years. Given his pieces’ seductive and sophisticated merging of the figurative and the abstract, it’s hardly surprising that Sami is near universally considered a shoo-in for this year’s Turner.

Yet for the Turner Prize to reward an artist for something as old-world as proficiency in their craft would feel like a weirdly retrogressive move for this once controversial prize. While last year’s 40th anniversary saw numerous calls for the prize to be retired – its turn-of-the-Noughties outrage highpoint having long since passed – taking a more conservative direction would undoubtedly prove destructive to an institution that has long been regarded as one of the key barometers of cutting-edge art.

But all things considered, Sami is still, in my opinion, the only credible winner for this year’s Turner Prize. Take Xa, his main competitor on the painting front, who is part of a mystical trend in contemporary art. Merging land and seascape in hallucinatory compositions rooted in the shamanic traditions of her Korean heritage, her work is technically accomplished in an overblown, occult illustration kind of way. But presented amid this eye-popping installation, with electronic soundscapes emanating from shells, festooning masses of bells – not to mention that gold floor – her paintings are reduced to pieces of decorative scene-setting. It’s as though Xa isn’t sufficiently confident of their completeness and significance to present them as works of art in their own right.

Kalu’s hanging sculptures, created by winding recycled materials – cloth, paper, card, various kinds of tape – around lengths of flexible ducting pipe, create a sense of joyous uplift as we enter her space, with their vibrant colour and feeling of twisting, turning motion. They reflect the “innate rhythms” of the neurodiverse, Nigerian-heritage artist, explains one of her “facilitators” in an accompanying video – an effect that continues into some rather beautiful spiralling drawings on the surrounding walls, though, as the facilitator concedes, “it is always the same rhythm”.

It’s refreshing, in our overwhelmingly message-driven times, to encounter art that doesn’t aim to offer anything beyond an empathic enjoyment in the handling of physical stuff. Yet while there’s no reason in principle why an artist with complex support needs, who is unable to speak for herself, shouldn’t win the Turner, exposing them to the accompanying media scrutiny could make for an uncomfortable spectacle.

Matić is the artist I most wanted to like among this year’s contenders. The artist – who has English, Irish and Saint Lucian heritage – hails from the suburbs of Peterborough, and talks powerfully in their accompanying video about being mixed-race, describing a feeling that whiteness and Blackness are “at war” in their body.

If that says something profound about the condition of contemporary Britain, far beyond the experience of one individual, it doesn’t translate sufficiently into Matić’s exhibition, which is bisected by a huge banner that reads “No Place” on one side, and “For Violence” on the other. While the slogan is drawn from American responses to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in 2024, the work’s comment on “the contradictions between political words and actions” feels slight. Matić’s images of demos, political graffiti, and gay clubbers appear generalised, like stock images of now, and lack the sense of deeply personal involvement that is evident in the video.

Which returns us to Mohammed Sami. Wanting to deal with the traumas of his native Iraq without resorting to the clichés of news reportage – angry crowds, blasted corpses – he tries to make the intangible visible: the sound of a bullet, the presence of people who have just left the room. In The Grinder (2023), concentric circular forms, including a carpet and the ominous shadow of a large static ceiling fan, seem to pull us in, as though into a mill, towards a circular plywood table around which four chairs are loosely arranged. Whether some momentous meeting with potentially horrific consequences has just taken place, or a casual chat over coffee, we’re left to wonder. That feeling of mystery is intrinsically bound up with the mass of fragmentary brush strokes from which the image is constructed.

In the vast The Hunter’s Return (2025), a blasted palm forest emerges from a fog of orange dust, as though in the throes of some devastating battle. Any human presence, however, is hinted at only by the luminous green tracks of “military lasers” that seem to fizz across the morass of muddy paint. The feeling is of Apocalypse Now via computer games, with a touch of Monet.

I could go on. Sami’s long-term struggle to make himself understood with paint is evident in what we see on the canvas – not just in the accompanying wall texts – in a way that makes the other artists’ efforts feel a shade superficial. If the idea of the artist “wrestling” with their medium feels just a little old-school amid today’s atomised digitality, it certainly seems to be producing results.

Turner Prize 2025 is at Cartwright Hall, Bradford, from 27 September until 22 February

Dickie Bird, legendary cricket umpire, dies aged 92

Dickie Bird, the heralded former Test cricket umpire beloved across the game, has died at the age of 92.

His passing was announced by Yorkshire Cricket Club, who said in a statement: “It is with profound sadness that the Yorkshire County Cricket Club announces the passing of Harold Dennis “Dickie” Bird MBE OBE, one of cricket’s most beloved figures, who died peacefully at home at the age of 92.

“The thoughts of everyone at the Yorkshire County Cricket Club are with Dickie’s family and friends during this time. He will be truly missed by all at the club, having spent an incredible amount of time in support of everyone here, and will be remembered as one of the greatest characters in Yorkshire’s history.”

Bird set records for the most Test matches (66) and one-day internationals (69) umpired, during a long and storied officiating career that spanned 26 years, and he became perhaps the most popular official in all of sport. His eccentricities added to his charm and made for some memorable anecdotes.

As his great friend, the late journalist and TV host Michael Parkinson, said: “Only Shakespeare could have invented a character so full of life’s rich juices as Dickie Bird. Cricket’s genius has been to accommodate his foibles and celebrate his humour.”

Harold Dennis Bird picked up the nickname “Dickie” at school, and it stuck throughout his life. The son of a coal miner, Bird grew up in Barnsley and was proud both of his working-class roots and of his identity as a Yorkshireman, going on to represent his county. His image remains cast in bronze on a high plinth on Barnsley’s Church Lane, where he was born. The statue had to be raised to stop people from hanging things – often women’s underwear – on his outstretched finger.

Bird was a handy player who liked to open the batting, but a persistent knee injury disrupted his progress. He recorded two first-class centuries in 93 matches, including 181 not out against Glamorgan at Bradford in 1959 after standing in as an opener for Ken Taylor, who was on international duty with England. Despite his giant score, once Taylor returned, Bird lost his place.

He never represented his country but scored more than 3,000 runs at an average of 20.71 for Yorkshire and Leicestershire, before a four-year stint racking up runs for Paignton and coaching at Plymouth College.

Aged 36, Bird took up umpiring. He took charge of his first county game in 1970, and his first Test match three years later for the visit of New Zealand, at Yorkshire’s home ground, Headingley.

In 1975, he also umpired the first Cricket World Cup final, which produced one of his most memorable stories. West Indian fans invaded the pitch after their team’s victory, and Bird’s wide-brim hat was pinched in the melee. A year later, he spotted it on the head of a London bus driver.

Bird could be a bowler’s nightmare at times, refusing to give out lbw unless absolutely certain. But he was good-humoured with a dry wit, and he was respected and well liked by the entire cricket community. Bird was also a great character – or, as Sir Ian Botham described him, “barking mad”.

There are many stories of Bird’s unusual approach to his extraordinary life. When he was invited to lunch at Chequers with the cricket-mad prime minister John Major, Bird was so worried about being late that he drove through the night and arrived at the gates at 7am. Security was bewildered, and Major was still in bed. “We ended up having breakfast and lunch together,” Bird recalled. “He sends me a lovely card every Christmas.”

Of his approach to umpiring some of the biggest matches in world cricket, which included three World Cup finals, Bird once said: “I don’t care much about the television cameras. I just give my decisions. As I see it. As you and I see it.”

He later reflected: “If I had to describe myself as an umpire, I’d like to say I was honest and fair. I treated everybody on the field as human beings and as professional cricketers. If I had the respect of the players, then marvellous.”

Bird was given a guard of honour by India and England before his final Test match in 1996, which moved him to tears. His love of cricket never wavered, and he was honoured to become president of Yorkshire CCC in 2014, describing it as the “greatest cricket club in the world”.

His life intertwined with that of his friend Parkinson. They were both coal miners’ sons and played cricket together in Barnsley as children. They remained close throughout their lives, often talking for hours on the telephone, and they shared one last phone call the night before Parkinson died, in August 2023.

“We said our goodbyes,” Bird told The Telegraph. “We shed a few tears. That meant more to me than anything. We had a wonderful friendship … There’ll never be another Parky. Never. I miss him. He was the best. He was the king.”

Bird was deeply religious and attended church on Sundays. He never married, and said: “I’ve had girlfriends – I’m not afraid to admit it – and I nearly married twice. But I never married, because in cricket you are never at home. I thought it would never work. It would have been wonderful to have a lad and watch him play. I missed that. But you can’t have everything. I gave myself to cricket, and it has given me a real good life.”

How subtle wit shaped the social codes of British culture

The British are a funny lot. In the most literal sense, obviously. The birthplace of Vic and Bob, Morecambe and Wise, Julia Davis and Sara Pascoe is, pound for pound, arguably the funniest nation on earth. But we’re also a funny lot in the other sense – a bit odd, a little unreadable. For outsiders, decoding a Brit can be baffling, because we so rarely say what we mean. We communicate in code, default to irony, and hide behind humour like it’s an invisibility cloak.

There’s a strong case to be made that the British sense of humour – self-deprecating, absurdist, forever puncturing pomposity – has become the defining national trait. More so, even, than driving on the left, putting milk in tea, or holding entire conversations about the weather. The thing that really makes us us is our collective compulsion to make each other laugh. Want a snapshot of Britain at its best? Look no further than this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, with sets from Ahir Shah, Josie Long, Bridget Christie, Nish Kumar, Toussaint Douglass, Leila Navabi and Ivo Graham. A brilliantly diverse line-up, united by one shared attribute: every single one of them is absolutely hilarious.

But why has humour become so central to Britain’s sense of identity? There’s no single answer, but a few theories spring to mind.

First: the class system. Britain’s social hierarchy has long been a source of tension – and tension, as any comic will tell you, is comedy’s favourite plaything. From Tony Hancock muttering darkly in East Cheam and Harold Steptoe’s eternally thwarted ambitions, to the iconic 1960s Frost Report sketch in which John Cleese looks down on Ronnie Barker, who in turn looks down on Ronnie Corbett, our social structures have been ripe for sending up.

But perhaps even more relevant is the fact that Britain is a country of frequently inclement weather. If you live on a beach under brilliant blue skies, you’re less likely to spend much of your time squirreled away in your bedroom writing sitcoms, or holed up in a pub entertaining your mates with well-worked one-liners. And life on this island is just inherently comic, isn’t it? Dreary days, of that sort that we know well, are just funny in a way that sparkling Spanish summer days simply aren’t.

In other cases, it’s harder to say which came first: the cultural quirk or the comedy. Victorian prudishness, for instance, undoubtedly spawned the gloriously euphemistic tradition of bawdy seaside postcards and the how’s-your-father sauciness of the Carry On films. But maybe it works both ways. Perhaps it’s our in-built sense of the ridiculous that made us prudish in the first place. For those of us not blessed with Love Island physiques, our unclothed bodies are – let’s be honest – fairly comic. Maybe we’re not appalled by nudity because we’re repressed, but because we can’t stop laughing.

What is clear is that nowhere else is humour so entangled with the rules of polite society. Take the uniquely British ‘polite insult’ – a national art form. Shakespeare had Orlando declare, with perfect froideur in As You Like It: “I desire we be better strangers.” Today, we’ve refined the technique further. “How interesting,” or “Good for you,” are rarely compliments. And this love of the not-quite-compliment is everywhere in British TV comedy, from Rowan Atkinson’s exquisitely passive-aggressive Blackadder to Basil Fawlty’s majestic withering disdain:

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, your lordship… I do apologise, please forgive me. Now, was there something – is there something – anything I can do for you? Anything at all?”

That love of sarcasm and subtext seeps into every part of British life. We find it near impossible to admit to being good at anything. Self-praise feels grubby. Even compliments are hedged with qualifiers. And we say sorry constantly – even when we don’t mean it. Especially when we don’t mean it.

Of course, life would probably be simpler if we all agreed to be a bit more direct. No more layers of irony. No more cryptic banter or euphemism. Just say what you mean. But, to use a phrase soaked in British understatement: that’s not really our cup of tea, is it?

Now you’re in the know, don’t forget to set the juice loose with Maynards Bassetts – grab a bag today!

All Amazon Fresh grocery stores in UK set to close

Amazon plans to close all 19 of its grocery shops across the UK, putting as many as 250 jobs at risk.

The firm will look to convert up to five of the Amazon Fresh shops, noted for their walk-in walk-out style with no checkouts, into Whole Foods stores.

Amazon said the move is part of a wider overhaul of its UK grocery operations, which will shift focus more towards its online business. Its bosses have said that the firm is still “deeply invested” in the UK.

The US-based company said on Tuesday that it had launched a consultation process proposing the closure of the Amazon Fresh UK stores.

It is consulting with employees at the sites, which employ around 250 staff. However, it said not all employees are set to be affected by the closures, and it plans to offer those who are new roles in other parts of the business.

Recently, the company pledged to invest £40bn in Britain across the next three years.

The Fresh brand was first launched in 2021, opening its first till-less store in Ealing, with technology that allowed customers to walk out with their shopping without having to use a checkout. Shoppers used an app to enter the store and were then billed to the platform when they left, with a range of cameras and other technology used to work out which products they purchased.

However, the group slowed down significant growth ambitions for the business as shopper demand waned at the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

As part of the proposals, five shops could transition to Amazon’s Whole Foods Market brand, which focuses on organic produce. It said the conversion plan, along with two further new sites, is expected to grow the Whole Foods business to 12 stores by the end of next year.

On Tuesday, Amazon also said it plans to double the number of Prime subscription members with access to at least three of the retailer’s grocery options, through its partners Morrisons, Iceland, Co-op and Gopuff.

It also said it will introduce fresh groceries including dairy, meat and seafood to its website from next year.

John Boumphrey, country manager for Amazon UK, said: “Since 2008, we’ve worked hard to innovate to help our customers save time and money when shopping for groceries and household essentials.

“We continue to invent and invest to bring more choice and convenience to UK customers, enabling them to shop for a wide range of everyday essentials and groceries with low prices and fast delivery through Amazon.co.uk, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market stores, alongside our third-party grocery partners, including Morrisons, Co-op, Iceland, and Gopuff.”

Amazon is estimated to employ more than 75,000 people in the UK, the majority across its warehouse and delivery operations.

In future up to 2,000 new jobs could be created at new warehouses in Hull and Northampton.

It has been reported that Amazon Fresh contributed $5bn (£3.7bn) in revenues during one quarter in 2024, but this is across all grocery sales online and in physical stores, as well as being global rather than just UK-focused.

Amazon paid £1bn in UK taxes on revenues of over £29bn last year.

Last week, Amazon announced it would offer employees a pay rise above inflation levels, increasing its minimum wage to £14.30 an hour.

Why the Ballon d’Or got it wrong

So now we fully transition from the Lionel Messi–Cristiano Ronaldo era to the modern equivalent of Florian Albert or Allan Simonsen.

That isn’t to be disrespectful to two genuine greats, or to the 47th player to win the Ballon d’Or, Ousmane Dembele. He, like his predecessors, at least has a good argument to claim the award.

It’s just that, as was the case way back then, it doesn’t feel like one of those victories that is going to be overly celebrated from the vantage point of the future. There’s an element of trying to force present performances to fit something grander, to amplify them into something that meets the bar.

So, in the absence of a major men’s tournament, or a player who was truly dominant at the elite level, Dembele was the next man along. The 28-year-old was Paris Saint-Germain’s joint top scorer in the Champions League knockout stages, scoring four goals.

Two of those were genuinely big goals against Liverpool and Arsenal, but the other two were against Brest, where PSG only showcased how they spend most of their year: enjoying their vast economic advantage to pummel French opposition in games that are barely contests.

All of that starts to feel a little thin when you consider the list of players in this millennium alone who have not won the award: Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Thierry Henry, Paolo Maldini, and – so far – Robert Lewandowski, Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland.

Part of this is just the luck of a given year, and who you happen to be up against. Alongside that, though, is the ongoing tension around what the award actually represents: whether it’s about being the most valuable player, or a genuine bid to crown the best – the most talented – footballer in the world.

Of course, “most talented” is somewhat dependent on the application of that talent… which is why the award feels like it should be some subjective combination of the two.

This is what Messi and Ronaldo showcased for so long, which has probably warped perspectives to a certain degree. They were performing at this astonishing level, and directly delivering the biggest trophies along the way.

Even if you take the now accepted wisdom that Messi was the greater player, and perhaps the best of all time, Ronaldo still had an obvious claim to every victory. Four of his five wins accompanied Champions Leagues. Otherwise worthy winners such as Xavi, Iniesta, Lewandowski and Haaland were simply unlucky to be competing against them in the middle of very long prime periods.

On the other side, though, Dembele is perhaps lucky that he was up against a player who is perhaps seen as being on the cusp of his prime. Lamine Yamal would have been a much more fitting winner of the trophy. He’s clearly already the best player in the world. He performs to a higher level than anyone else, doing things that other players couldn’t have conceived of. He’s also doing them in the biggest games.

It’s not Yamal’s fault that Barcelona failed to beat Inter in that sensational Champions League semi-final. He was the player who did the most to try to avoid that.

All of this similarly applies to Aitana Bonmati, who rightly won the women’s award ahead of Mariona Caldentey and Alessia Russo, one of five England players who finished in the top 10 but ultimately fell short.

Bonmati is clearly the best player in the world. She performs to a higher level than anyone else, doing things that other players couldn’t have conceived of. She’s also doing them in the biggest games.

It’s not Aitana’s fault that Barcelona failed to beat Arsenal and Spain failed to beat England in the finals she played in. She was most responsible for delivering her teams there. But while Aitana was already a two-time winner – this third award affording her that gold-standard historic achievement – that often means it’s more palatable to vote for a player who doesn’t win the biggest team prizes.

Did Yamal miss out because he is still so young, and there’s a sense of having to rise to it? He would have been the first teenager to win the award.

And yet even if you reduce it to a basic, binary choice between the two, Yamal performed to a higher level than Dembele, and also did more. The only real difference was that Dembele’s team won the final. And there’s even an argument that Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was more influential in that.

If it was just down to the glare of the European Cup, it would be oddly fitting for a trophy that has evolved from an old-world gravitas and traditional prestige to something that is more about glamour and gaudiness. Even the trophy itself has become much more ostentatious over the years, something that you really notice if you look back at those old photos of Johan Cruyff or George Best lifting their humble little orb.

Duly, the lobbying is said to have been more aggressive than ever this year, and it has got more pronounced as the seasons have gone on. The Messi-Ronaldo era influenced this, so it’s another case of modern football eating itself.

None of this is to argue against the acknowledgement of an individual’s worth in a team sport. Some players are obviously more decisive, and it’s right – and actually part of the fun of the sport – that this is recognised.

It’s just that, as has been the case in a few other years in the course of the competition’s seven decades, it doesn’t necessarily feel like the 2025 Ballon D’Or fully did that.

Yamal did much more.