Eyes on the ball
Viewing figures for Match of the Day rose by 500,000 when Gary Lineker was suspended from the show for tweeting about the government’s asylum bill and his fellow pundits walked out on strike in support.
– First broadcast on the then new BBC2 on 22 August 1964, the show was initially controversial not because of the views of its presenter Kenneth Wolstenholme but because football clubs feared it would discourage fans from attending games.
– They need not have worried: the first episode, featuring highlights of Liverpool vs Arsenal, attracted just 20,000 viewers.
– Viewing figures rose sharply, however, after England won the World Cup in 1966 and the programme was moved to BBC1. It gained its famous theme tune, written by Barry Stoller, in 1970.
Hot air
Is the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme (which offers grants of up to £6,000 for replacing fossil-fuel heating systems with heat pumps or biomass boilers) a triumph for levelling up? Number of vouchers issued by constituency:
Highest
South Cambridgeshire 147
St Ives 133
Truro and Falmouth 95
North Wiltshire; Somerton and Frome 85
South East Cambridgeshire 83
Lowest
Barking, Birmingham Hodge Hill, Blackpool South, Broxbourne, Denton and Reddish, Edmonton, Islington South and Finsbury, Liverpool Walton, Liverpool, West Derby, Wallasey, Wolverhampton South East 0
Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Don’t bank on it
Two US banks, the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, failed within two days.
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