logo
Glenalmond College head resigns after Qatari investment deal

Glenalmond College head resigns after Qatari investment deal

Times20 hours ago
The headmaster of one of Scotland's most prestigious private schools has unexpectedly quit in the wake of an influx of Qatari money.
Mark Mortimer announced his departure from Glenalmond College, near Perth, sometimes known as the Eton of the North, as pupils broke up for the summer.
As he resigned the outgoing head praised the deal between Glenalmond Group and a newly formed London company, 35 Education, led by a Turkish academic and Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, a former politician with links to the Qatari royal family.
Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah is a former deputy prime minister of Qatar and is president of the schools group
OLIVIER DOULIERY/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Mortimer, a former infantry officer who has twice rowed across the Atlantic, wrote in an open letter to parents that the partnership was a 'collaboration which blends tradition with innovation, united by common values and a shared ethos and purpose — to develop young people of courage and character, committed to making the world a better place'.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Pound and gilts slump amid doubts over Chancellor's future
Pound and gilts slump amid doubts over Chancellor's future

The Independent

time8 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Pound and gilts slump amid doubts over Chancellor's future

The value of the pound and long-term Government bonds slumped sharply after Sir Keir Starmer failed to back Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Ms Reeves was visibly tearful in the House of Commons over a 'personal issue', as her position and Government credibility faced scrutiny after a U-turn on welfare plans. The U-turn on the Welfare Bill is now expected to stop the Labour Government from securing almost £5 billion worth of savings as it seeks to balance the books. Financial markets were knocked as a result, with the value of the pound and gilts dropping noticeably as the Prime Minister spoke in Parliament. The pound slid by 1.14% to 1.358 against the US dollar on Wednesday. Sterling had risen to a fresh three-year high against the dollar on Tuesday. The currency also fell by 0.8% to 1.155 against the euro, striking its lowest level since April. Meanwhile, the yield on Government bonds, called gilts, jumped in the face of concerns among investors. The yield on 10-year gilts rose by 0.17 percentage points to 4.63%, while the 30-year gilt rose by 0.22 percentage points to 5.45%. Both of these were the sharpest increases since US President Donald Trump's tariff plans shook up financial markets in April. Gilt yields move counter to the value of the bonds, meaning that their prices were lower on Wednesday because of the change. The rise in yields also means it will be more expensive for the Government to pay off debts, putting further pressure on its finances. Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, said: 'UK bond yields have taken a step higher as we progress through Wednesday, and Prime Minister's Questions has not eased concern that the bond vigilantes are circling. UK bonds are tanking today. 'If yields continue to rise at this pace for the next few days, the PM and Chancellor will have to decide if they want to have a sensible fiscal policy whereby public sector debt is reined in, or whether they want to please the Labour backbenches, who don't seem worried by rising debt levels and forget that we are in a new era, where bond investors can shun sovereign debt in favour of less risky, less indebted corporate debt. 'Overall, this could be the start of another fiscal crisis for the UK.'

Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories
Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories

The Guardian

time12 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories

A decision by Elon Musk's X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of 'lies and conspiracy theories', a former UK technology minister has warned. Damian Collins accused Musk's firm of 'leaving it to bots to edit the news' after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language modelsto write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before they are approved for publication by users. The notes have previously been written by humans. X said using AI to write factchecking notes – which sit beneath some X posts – 'advances the state of the art in improving information quality on the internet'. Keith Coleman, the vice president of product at X, said humans would review AI-generated notes and the note would appear only if people with a variety of viewpoints found it useful. 'We designed this pilot to be AI helping humans, with humans deciding,' he said. 'We believe this can deliver both high quality and high trust. Additionally we published a paper along with the launch of our pilot, co-authored with professors and researchers from MIT, University of Washington, Harvard and Stanford laying out why this combination of AI and humans is such a promising direction.' But Collins said the system was already open to abuse and that AI agents working on community notes could allow 'the industrial manipulation of what people see and decide to trust' on the platform, which has about 600 million users. It is the latest pushback against human factcheckers by US tech firms. Last month Google said user-created fact checks, including by professional factchecking organisations, would be deprioritised in its search results. It said such checks were 'no longer providing significant additional value for users'. In January, Meta announced it was scrapping human factcheckers in the US and would adopt its own community notes system on Instagram, Facebook and Threads. X's research paper outlining its new factchecking system criticised professional factchecking as often slow and limited in scale and said it 'lacks trust by large sections of the public'. AI-created community notes 'have the potential to be faster to produce, less effort to generate, and of high quality', it said. Human and AI-written notes would be submitted into the same pool and X users would vote for which were most useful and should appear on the platform. AI would draft 'a neutral well-evidenced summary', the research paper said. Trust in community notes 'stems not from who drafts the notes, but from the people that evaluate them,' it said. But Andy Dudfield, the head of AI at the UK factchecking organisation Full Fact, said: 'These plans risk increasing the already significant burden on human reviewers to check even more draft Notes, opening the door to a worrying and plausible situation in which Notes could be drafted, reviewed, and published entirely by AI without the careful consideration that human input provides.' Samuel Stockwell, a research associate at the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security at the Alan Turing Institute, said: 'AI can help factcheckers process the huge volumes of claims flowing daily through social media, but much will depend on the quality of safeguards X puts in place against the risk that these AI 'note writers' could hallucinate and amplify misinformation in their outputs. AI chatbots often struggle with nuance and context, but are good at confidently providing answers that sound persuasive even when untrue. That could be a dangerous combination if not effectively addressed by the platform.' Researchers have found that people perceived human-authored community notes as significantly more trustworthy than simple misinformation flags. An analysis of several hundred misleading posts on X in the run up to last year's presidential election found that in three-quarters of cases, accurate community notes were not being displayed, indicating they were not being upvoted by users. These misleading posts, including claims that Democrats were importing illegal voters and the 2020 presidential election was stolen, amassed more than 2bn views, according to the Centre for Countering Digital Hate.

Britain's Starmer backs his Treasury chief after U-turns dent the government's fiscal plans
Britain's Starmer backs his Treasury chief after U-turns dent the government's fiscal plans

The Independent

time22 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Britain's Starmer backs his Treasury chief after U-turns dent the government's fiscal plans

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said Wednesday that Treasury chief Rachel Reeves is secure in her job after a series of government U-turns dented her revenue-raising plans. Speculation about Reeves' future mounted after she appeared to be in tears Wednesday in the House of Commons, the day after an embarrassing reversal for the government over its plans to cut welfare spending. Many viewers observed that Reeves looked exhausted and upset as she sat behind Starmer during the weekly Prime Minister's Questions session. The Treasury said Reeves was dealing with a 'personal matter.' It would not elaborate. Starmer initially declined to say, when asked by opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, that Reeves would still have her job when the next election is called, likely in 2029. But Starmer's press secretary later said Reeves 'is going nowhere. She has the prime minister's full backing.' On Tuesday, Starmer's government was forced to water down plans to curb welfare spending in order to quell a rebellion by lawmakers from his own party. In something of a hollow victory, the bill passed its first big House of Commons hurdle after the government appeased Labour Party rebels by softening and delaying cuts to welfare benefits for disabled people. Even so, 49 Labour lawmakers voted against the bill. The result is a major blow to Starmer's authority as he approaches the one-year anniversary of his election on Friday, reckoning with a sluggish economy and rock-bottom approval ratings. It also leaves the Treasury short of money it had counted on to invest in public services, making tax increases more likely. The government has promised not to raise key levies including income tax and sales tax. The government estimated that its welfare reforms would save 5 billion pounds ($7 billion) a year, but after the changes it's unclear whether they will save any money at all. The reversal follows a decision in May to drop a plan to end winter home heating subsidies for millions of retirees, which Reeves had also counted on to raise money.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store