Weekend Box: Royal Rail, Mariupol & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business, and cultural news from around the world.
UKRAINE: RUSSIA TAKES MARIUPOL
Russia this week claimed a victory in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, as an estimated near-2000 soldiers defending the embattled Azovstal steelworks surrendered to the invading forces, effectively ending the battle for control of Mariupol.
On Monday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shared a statement on Facebook claiming that the “garrison” of soldiers that had taken refuge inside the steelworks had completed its mission and that a rescue operation was underway. Some soldiers have been to the former prison colony of Olenivka in eastern Ukraine, which is recognised to be controlled by the pro-Russian separatist Donetsk People's Republic, while others have been hospitalised in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk.
Addressing Ukraine on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasised the importance of ensuring the soldiers’ survival. While the terms on which Russia and Ukraine have agreed to the operation are unknown, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar claims that an “exchange” of captured soldiers will take place between the two militaries. However, Russian politician Vyacheslav Volodin has argued that the captured soldiers, who he described as “Nazis,” must be treated as war criminals. The office of Russia’s Prosecutor General has appealed to the Supreme Court to classify the Azov Regiment, which has led the efforts to repel Russians from inside Azovstal, as a terrorist organisation. The Regiment is a former militia infamous for neo-Nazi associations that was enrolled into the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014. The International Committee of the Red Cross says that as part of the agreement between Russia and Ukraine, it has registered many captured soldiers as prisoners of war, which would prevent their mistreatment under the Geneva Conventions.
The operation signals an end to Russia’s months-long bombardment of Mariupol, in which some of the most horrific incidents in the conflict occurred; for example, the shelling of a maternity hospital in March. In taking the city, President Vladimir Putin’s forces gain a major strategic advantage in the form of a land corridor connecting the Crimean Peninsula and the pro-Russian separatist regions of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic. The Weekend Box will follow news of the prisoner exchange and share any major updates.
VIVA L’AMANDA
Amanda Blanc is a thought leader and trailblazer for women in finance. She was the first woman to become chair of the Association of British Insurers in the organisation's 33-year history and in 2020 she became Aviva's first female chief executive. Blanc’s professional accomplishments are indisputably impressive. However, what we admire most is her courageous refusal to be silenced or deterred by sexist remarks and her enduring commitment to tackling misogyny in the finance sector.
Blanc faced a barrage of sexist remarks from individual male shareholders at the Aviva AGM in London earlier this month, with comments from the floor that she “was not the man for the job" and that she should be “wearing trousers” like her male predecessors. One shareholder, Ted O’Toole, made the following shocking comment after applauding the board on its gender diversity: “[Women] are so good at basic housekeeping activities, I’m sure this will be reflected in the direction of the board in the future.” In response to these and other comments, Aviva chair George Culmer stated: “I’m not going to say thank you to everyone for your comments, because I think there were some comments in that session that were simply inappropriate and I do not expect and would [not] want to hear at any future AGM. I’m flabbergasted, to be honest.”
After fierce rebukes were made against the remarks on social media, Ms Blanc took to LinkedIn. The FTSE 100 boss, who has held a number of senior roles over the course of her 30 years in insurance, wrote that “having heard the same prejudicial rhetoric for so long” she had become “a little immune to it all.” However, the fact that the shareholders had the audacity to spout their sexism in a public AGM was a “new development for [her] personally” and a clear indicator that sexism and “unacceptable behaviour” has become worse and more “overt.”
This week, Ms Blanc told reporters that the best way to combat misogyny was to promote more role models and more women in senior positions in the financial sector, and that putting in “hard yards” is imperative to effecting the necessary change: “It’s not a norm to see a woman on a stage like that . . . I just want to be judged on what I’m doing here at Aviva.”
BUFFALO: EXTREMISM IN AMERICA
The narrative is now all too familiar. From the Pittsburgh attack to the El Paso massacre, and to the latest deadly mass shooting at a supermaket in Buffalo, New York, each of these scenes of horror are linked by one insidiously sprawling and ever-metamorphosing white supremacist belief known as the ‘Great Replacement’. This false notion that an elite is plotting for minority groups to undermine white citizens by gaining a demographic advantage has become the catalyst for acts of racist terror, sparked a wave of mass shootings across the country, and galvanised the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville.
The Buffalo shooter recounts his path to radicalisation in a 180-page diatribe. He claims that due to “extreme boredom” during the first lockdown in 2020, he submerged himself in the digital fever swamp of 4chan, an online message board-based forum where users can post anonymously and with little in the way of oversight or restriction. He says that the platform “awakened” him to the 'Great Replacement'. Reflecting the ideological extremes behind the conspiracy theory, his manifesto explains that the site’s “infographics, s***posts, and memes” led him to believe that “the white race is dying out” and immigrants are “replacers". Repeated references to the 'Great Replacement' in this manifesto have led many to believe that the racist conspiracy theory was his motive for committing the atrocity at the supermarket.
In recent months, versions of the the same ideas and beliefs, although watered down, have become commonplace in the Republican Party; stated aloud at congressional hearings, echoed in Congresswoman-turned-Trump-devotee Elise Stefanik's advertisements, and espoused by a growing range of right-wing candidates and media personalities. No one, however, has pushed the white supremacist theory into the mainstream more relentlessly than Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Carlson is the most popular host on Fox News, drawing more than 2m viewers to his evening show, which many have described as the “most racist” on American television. In April a New York Times investigation reported that in more than 400 hundred of his shows, Carlson has platformed the conspiracy theory that a “cabal of elites... want to force demographic change through immigration,” and that his producers sometimes found the raw material for his shows from the same sinister corners of the internet that the Buffalo shooter frequented.
In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Carlson did not acknowledge the shooter's motive, as stated in his manifesto, on his evening show. Instead, he asserted that the shooter’s testimony “was not recognizably left wing or right wing: it’s not really political at all.”
The blame solely rests with the Buffalo shooter. However, it is undeniable that the sinister interplay between extremism found on forums like 4chan and versions of this being professed amongst the Republican Party and media outlets are encouraging these acts of racially-motivated violence. People like Carlson and Stefanik can introduce viewers to these ideas, which they are then able to explore on the Web, leading them to sites such as 4chan; a digital hotbed for hate, neo-Nazi rhetoric, and racist conspiracy theories. Whilst Democrats have pressurised Republicans and some media outlets, particularly Fox News, to denounce the replacement theory, it is not enough. To prevent yet another racially-motivated act of violence, disciplinary measures must be brought against influential figures who normalise these sorts of baseless, hate-fuelled ideas.
ROYAL RAIL
On Tuesday morning, VIP guests to the inauguration of the now-completed Elizabeth Line were treated to a royal surprise, as they were joined by the person for whom the line is named: none other than Queen Elizabeth herself.
Originally Her Majesty was not expected to attend the event at Paddington, and the Earl of Wessex was to have declared the line officially open. However, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace announced early in the morning that in “a happy development,” The Queen would attend, marking her second appearance since her recent return to public engagements with the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
Her Majesty was welcomed at Paddington by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and Transport for London commissioner Andy Byford. Wearing a brilliant yellow outfit for the occasion, The Queen drew the curtains (in the same trademark purple as the Elizabeth Line logo) on a plaque declaring the line “[o]fficially opened by Her Majesty the Queen.” Her Majesty was then gifted a commemorative Oyster Card and was shown how to top it up by customer experience assistant Kofi Duah. However, The Queen chose not to embark on one of the new Crossrail trains on this occasion. The Earl of Wessex took the first journey to Tottenham Court Road and back in the cab, describing the experience as “brilliant.”
A portion of the Elizabeth Line, travelling from Abbey Wood to Paddington, will open for passengers next Tuesday. Britons will also be able to join together in a nationwide celebration in only two weeks’ time, as the Platinum Jubilee begins on Thursday 2nd June. The four days of festivities will feature must-see events including The Queen’s Birthday Parade, the Platinum Party concert featuring none other than Diana Ross, and on Sunday 5th June the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, co-chaired by Audley’s Chairman Sir Michael Lockett, which promises to crown the celebrations in truly regal fashion.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audley.uk.com.
For now, that’s the weekend box officially closed.