Image of the week: Worse times
UK prime minister Keir Starmer didn’t take a break this week to officiate at a garden wedding, as this picture suggests – but he might well feel like segueing into a more joy-filled career by the time Labour has finished sorting out the mess it’s inherited.
In a brave play on old Labour theme song Things Can Only Get Better, Starmer’s message to the public was a disarming “things can only get worse” and, indeed, “things are worse than we ever imagined” because there’s “a deep rot” at the heart of the structure and also, less metaphorically, a £22 billion (€26 million) black hole in the finances.
Claiming that Labour had done more in seven weeks to “fix the foundations” than the Tories had managed in seven years, Starmer didn’t hang around Downing Street’s Rose Garden for long. He was soon off to Germany in a bid to “reset” the UK’s relations with the EU without actually rejoining it.
Meanwhile, in a break from the mode of transport regularly enjoyed by predecessor Rishi Sunak, Starmer has scrapped the UK government’s helicopter contract, prompting calls for the royal family to do the same. Awkward.
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In numbers: Qantas downgrade
300
Number of people who were sold first-class flights by Qantas at a huge knock-down price thanks to a coding error. Sadly, the Australian airline is now giving them the option of a refund or a downgrade to business class.
85%
Discounts of up this much on typical first-class fares that the Qantas customers (briefly) received. “Unfortunately, this is a case where the fare was actually too good to be true,” the airline said.
€3,000
Approximate cost in euro of the erroneously priced return flights, which would also have entitled the bargain-hunters to whiskey and Champagne, an a la carte food menu, as well as a memory foam mattress and “pillow menu”.
Getting to know: Crew Dragon
Look, it’s not ideal. Astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore flew to the International Space Station in June on the Boeing Starliner for what was supposed to be a visit of about a week, but now they’re stranded there until February 2025. That’s because, as suggested might be the case in this column at the time, Boeing was very much not ready to take humans off-planet and the Starliner duly encountered some unfortunate issues en route.
SpaceX, by contrast, has so far successfully sent nine crewed flights to space for Nasa using Crew Dragon, dubbed “the most reliable spacecraft out there” by one expert. The vehicle will duly give Williams and Wilmore a lift home next year. But this reliability exacerbates some discomfort in political circles caused by the dominance of the company in the space economy, as SpaceX is, of course, owned by billionaire Elon Musk. And it’s just possible that his interests, and those of the White House, are not wholly aligned.
The list: Highest-paid tennis players
To mark the advent of the US Open, Forbes magazine has updated its list of the highest-paid tennis stars. And while the top 10′s collective earnings of $246 million (€221 million) over the past 12 months is some way down from the $343 million total recorded in 2020, the highest-paid are not exactly shy of a few bob.
5. Jannik Sinner: The Italian star won his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open earlier this year, helping him to total earnings of $26.6 million. He was recently cleared of any wrongdoing after two failed drug tests.
4. Iga Swiatek: The Polish world number one and five-time Slam champion earned more in prize money than third-placed Coco Gauff but her endorsements are more modest – luckily, she’s still estimated to have taken home $26.7 million.
3. Coco Gauff: Last year’s US Open champion (20) is understandably loved by sponsors in her native US, taking her total pay day to $27.1 million.
2. Novak Djokovic: The 24-time Grand Slam champion collected $37.2 million. But his newly won gold Olympic medal is presumably worth more to the Serb.
1. Carlos Alcaraz: The four-time Grand Slam champion has racked up $42.3 million over the past year and is still only 21. No wonder he’s always smiling. Well, almost always.
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