On The Steps
So far, only four acts have been announced, with more due to drop over the next few weeks and months.
The first act confirmed to light up the steps for the 2025 summer season will be the iconic Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand, who will be performing a one-off show on Wednesday, December 3. Franz Ferdinand's forecourt show will be the first time they've performed in Australia since 2018, when they brought their distinct breed of post-punk indie rock on a tour around the country. Next up, the hugely talented British songwriter/ hip-hop artist/ lyrical genius Loyle Carner will bring his poetic brilliance to the forecourt on Thursday, December 4 – his first Sydney show since his 2023 tour. A personal favourite, Byron-born alt-pop angels Parcels will perform two huge forecourt shows on Saturday, December 6 and Sunday, December 7. Rounding out the line-up, comedy star Urzila Carlson will be bringing big giggles to the forecourt on Saturday, December 13.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Sir Keir should not emulate Hugh Grant
His feet had barely touched British soil before Donald Trump started swinging his big stick. 'You better get your act together or you're not going to have Europe anymore,' he lambasted his Western allies after arriving in Scotland to visit his golf courses (not for the 47th president, concerns about second jobs). 'You've got to stop this horrible invasion that is happening to Europe, many countries in Europe… this immigration is killing Europe.' Setting aside the rights and wrongs of British immigration policy, our beleaguered Prime Minister would be forgiven for feeling a little peeved. What other American president would have presumed to blend personal and state business so brazenly and deliver such insulting rhetoric into the bargain? Amid social unrest in Epping, Reform on the march and small boats arrivals up by a staggering 50 per cent, immigration is Sir Keir's Achilles' heel. With his approval ratings at rock bottom, the last thing he needed was a punishment beating from Trump. Certainly, Sir Keir's backbenchers will be begging him to stand up to the Donald, if only to appease their voters in places like Ashton-under-Lyne, where many may be tempted by the Corbyn-Sultana cult or a Gaza Independent at the next election. Did Sir Sadiq Khan recommend that the Prime Minister reprise the 20ft Trump 'baby blimp' that he authorised to be flown above Parliament during the presidential visit of 2018? I wouldn't be surprised. And he wouldn't have been the only one. In the Left-wing mind, the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually looms disproportionately large. This is for the sake of one scene alone. In it, Hugh Grant – whom most progressives, particularly those of a Liberal Democrat persuasion, wish was the prime minister in real life – upbraids the American president at a press conference. 'I fear that this has become a bad relationship; a relationship based on the president taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to Britain,' Grant lectures his opposite number, played by Billy Bob Thornton. 'We may be a small country, but we're a great one, too… and a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the president should be prepared for that.' Forgive me for quoting that Richard Curtis idiocy at such length. But that is precisely what Guardianista-in-chief Polly Toynbee did in a petulant little column before Sir Keir's visit to the White House in February, under the screaming headline: 'Starmer has the backing of Britons to stand up to Trumpism.' I rest my case. But does he? When it comes to immigration, the opposite would appear to be the case. Although 55 per cent of Labour voters want the numbers to stay the same or go up, polls show that most of the population wishes them very much reduced, with 32 per cent viewing immigration as a 'bad' or 'very bad' thing. Small boats get people's backs up even more. For all his braggadocio and swagger, the sorry truth is that on this issue, Donald Trump speaks for a greater number of Britons than our own prime minister. For this reason, Sir Keir would be best advised to tell his backbenchers to pipe down. Trump's big stick has caused the PM enough pain already. Tweaking the orange tail might play well to certain parts of the gallery but after a year of economic mismanagement, we are hardly able to withstand the tariffs with which Trump would surely retaliate. Whatever Hugh Grant may think.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
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London Handel Players' pieces explore world of two Bachs and Telemann
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New Statesman
2 hours ago
- New Statesman
The landlord stranglehold
Illustration by Pablo Blasberg / Ikon Images Lofty views have long moved thoughtful souls to reflect on their property portfolios. The great Alexander hiked up the Eurasian Steppe in order to cry, because there was no land left to conquer. Mufasa the lion led Simba up Pride Rock to celebrate the fact that 'everything the light touches is ours'. I believe stout Cortez did something of the like too. Probably none of those famous perches reached a vantage so high as London's 224-metre 'Cheese Grater' skyscraper. But the unpropertied folk who gathered there on Tuesday 22 July had less vaunted reflections. Alexander wept because he owned all of his view. The attendees here wept because they owned none of theirs. Everything the light touched was a landlord's. The event was titled 'Shit! I'm in my 30s and not on the property ladder WTF?!' Before the talk, I spoke to a 28-year-old civil servant from the north-west who wanted a child and a garden with his girlfriend. But, he said, 'I genuinely cannot work out a calculation that puts me in a job where I can afford to.' Without family dying and leaving inheritances, there was no way anyone could afford anything. 'People are facing a worse time than ever when it comes to buying… It's such a depressing state to be in.' He had heard Japan was encouraging pro-immigration sentiment so young immigrants could fund the ageing population. But as more housing would damage the value of the existing stock, he had little hope of new building. 'I hate to be prophet of doom but it's what goes around inside my head. And I absolutely know that it's what goes around the heads of people my age all around the country.' Hosting the panel were columnist and housing campaigner Vicky Spratt and mortgage expert Andrew Montlake. The sofa had a hero for the crowd: a thirty-something professional living in a flatshare, wondering how she might ever buy a home. And the house villain: a slickly besuited man who had stopped 'messing around' trying to become a musician at 27, and was now an estate agent. But despite the potential Punch-and-Judy casting, the points made were tender. As Spratt put it, British people 'want a piece of the world that is theirs'. In lots of places, owning your house is not part of the culture. It's quite normal to rent all your life in several northern European countries. But the fact is that, in Britain, ownership is entrenched. Putting wealth in inert assets is not productive; but it has been profitable for generations, and it is now habit. In a recent Times column, Matthew Syed explained that his generation bought homes with their money 'because we naturally wanted to own our homes but also because we knew our wealth would surge'. They were right. He points out that in the last 30 years, London house prices are up 2,100 per cent. But that climb took prices far beyond wages, and so far above what the next generation could afford. It's such a glaring injustice that even Nigel Farage has made it part of his schtick, at times sounding like Jeremy Corbyn. (Ander perhaps Generation Rent is listening: Farage has more TikTok followers than all other MPs together.) He puts it succinctly. 'Getting a house, getting a good job. All they want is what their mum and dad have had! Or what their gran and grandad have had.' A difficulty in changing Britain is that the have-nots are so exposed to the haves. And that makes them angry. The young professional on stage fumed that the people who had answered no to her Instagram poll on whether people deserved to own homes were those whose parents had helped them buy one. Repeatedly summoned was the figure of the owner-landlord, who gets their tenant to work off their mortgage, or pay for their holidays. As the essayist Oliver Eagleton has put it, 'domestically, rentierism is the major structural problem for the British economy'. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe It is a problem for the British heart too. The government has recognised this and plans soon to implement the Renters' Rights Bill. And the panel expected that any future governments would continue the popular course. The near-term upshot of a more hostile letting environment is a transfer of stock as landlords sell to private, live-in buyers. What that means, the panel explained, is that if you can, you should buy as soon as possible. The supply flow will suppress prices but squeeze rents. (And Spratt noted that rent never seems to come back down again after inflationary pressures abate.) There will be between three and five years of this. Then, the supply dried up and the rent raised, property value will start to climb again. There is a right side and a wrong side to be on when that happens. Our only really radical solution available is to build much more housing. Oli Dugmore called for 5 million new homes in these pages. But Labour's flagship planning reforms recently made concessions to Chris Hinchliff's environmental regulations. And at the Cheese Grater, there was simply little hope that the young could ever prevail. For most owners, the house is the most valuable asset. They don't want it cheapened, and they have the power. [Further reading: Landlordism is killing culture] Related
