Cheer up Nic! Could it be fifth time lucky for film star Cage?
THE bride wore black and actor Nicolas Cage had a scowl to match as he tied the knot for a fifth time in a “very small and intimate” Lasvegas ceremony.
Despite his dark look, the Conair and Nationaltreasure actor confirmed: “It’s true... and we are very happy.”
Cage, 57, revealed he married Japanese girlfriend Riko Shibata – who at 26 is 31 years his junior and four years younger than his first sonweston – at the Wynn hotel last month.
They were hitched in a hush-hush ceremony fewer than two years after Cage – who won an Oscar for his 1995 hit film Leaving Lasvegas – appeared unsteady on his feet when he wed wife number four, Erika Koike, in Sin City.
That union lasted a mere four days but the actor said in a radio interview that he and Riko are “really happy together”, and added that he bought her a black diamond engagement ring during lockdown to match her three-layer black bridal kimono.
Cage, who wore a blacktom Ford tuxedo, added: “Her favourite colour is black, so she wanted the black gold and the black diamond. I customised it and sent it to her via Fedex.”
The father of two, whose previous wives include Lisa Marie Presley and actress Patricia Arquette, revealed he even proposed online, saying: “We got engaged on Facetime.”
Cage’s third wife Alice Kim, from whom he was divorced in 2016 after 12 years together – his longest union – was a guest at the ceremony, which took place on February 16, according to a marriage licence issued by the state of Nevada.
IT HASN’T taken long for the Conservative Party to become comfortable with the notion of spending eyewatering sums of money. Just ask the Labour Party, which saw the Tories take a 13-point lead in last week’s Yougov poll, after Rishi Sunak announced his Budget in full.
A wildly successful vaccine rollout and hopeful roadmap, and yes, more spending sprees, give Labour very little room to manoeuvre: what can they bring to the table that’s currently not on offer?
Snap polls years before an election don’t tell us much about a party’s future prospects. What they do highlight is an ideological shift that has taken place during the Covid crisis: increasing the appetite of the public for a bigger, more active state.
Not so long ago, a Tory Chancellor who announced Budget tax hikes and another year of record borrowing would face a severe backlash from backbenchers and the grassroots. Instead, Sunak has been met with broad support from his party, who have come to accept that this is the new normal – for some time, anyway.
There are varying degrees of scepticism about the Tories’ new love for splashing the cash. The problem isn’t the emergency measures, or Covid relief such as furlough, or grants for business, which virtually everyone agrees have been necessary. It’s the day-to-day spending and non-covid related projects that are also racking up.
While Boris Johnson is thought to be quite happy to live in a world in which he doesn’t have to make financial trade-offs, Sunak’s decision to raise corporation tax and freeze personal tax allowances was driven by caution. He has no expectations of paying down the debt or balancing the books right away, but wants to ensure the UK can pay its bills, if the conditions that now make it extremely cheap to borrow change.
Other MPS are even more nervous, not just about public finances, but the politics of spending as well. Labour might be struggling to compete right now, they think, but at the end of the day, the
Left can always outspend the
“Sunak wants to make sure the UK can continue to pay its bills
Right.what they currently view as a turf war could result in Labour shifting the Overton Window – the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population – even further to the left.
But for the Conservatives, these long-term arguments to be made about fiscal responsibility are out of sight and mind right now. It’s the immediate future that has their full attention. Over the next few years, Britain is set to make a comeback from its biggest economic slump in 300 years.
Forecasts published alongside Sunak’s Budget from the Office of Budget Responsibility show Britain making a recovery by the middle of next year, a slightly earlier timetable than their last forecast.
We’re predicted four per cent growth this year – accounting for our locked-down winter and hopefully vibrant summer – then a spectacular boom in 2022: a 7.3 per cent growth rate, as activity and confidence merge.
The problem, however, is that those long-term concerns about sustainability and political pressure may catch up with the Government sooner than it would like.
We may be looking at prosperous times ahead, but the consequences of the virus and perpetual lockdowns are going to linger for years. Millions more people are now on the NHS waiting list; children have missed out on months of classroom time. Industrialscale vaccine rollouts are likely
to be needed in the years to come. Yet last week’s Budget made “no explicit provision for virus-related costs beyond 2021-22”, according to the OBR; a gross oversight, say top analysts.
Describing the Chancellor’s plans as “a tale of two budgets”, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted that the recovery will be “built on the highest sustained tax burden in UK history”. Over a million people will be dragged into income tax in the next five years, with a million more pushed into a higher rate.
And still, with the tax burden now approaching a 70-year high, the party’s spending plans may not be feasible: as corporation tax goes up in 2023, the UK’S growth will be returning to the lacklustre rates that defined the last decade. Lower growth means a smaller tax base – and less revenue for the state.
The recovery from Covid needs to be one of elongated prosperity, not a one-hit wonder. This is likely to prove a tricky balancing act, especially for a party that has quickly acclimatised to government playing a bigger role in shaping the economy.
It would seem, for now, that the party is on board with the Budget’s difficult choices. But when the pain sets in, as it will, a pro-growth vision will need to be offered.
This will require another ideological shift, a return to promoting a more liberated economy: the recipe for long-term prosperity.
AT FIRST sight it’s the type of draconian action a government takes that is guaranteed to infuriate all and sundry – and should rightly be condemned as a state over-stepping the mark to a hideously unwarranted degree.
But when you realise in this instance it will save lives – particularly among the sick and vulnerable – it seems indefensible not to do it.
The Government is absolutely right to consider whether it is necessary to bring in legislation to force NHS staff and care workers to have the Covid vaccination.
Regrettably this has only become necessary because of a disappointingly low take-up in these sectors.
It seems truly baffling that anyone working on the frontline against this killer virus – exposed on a daily basis to the misery and suffering it can cause – would baulk at having a vaccination, but plenty have.
In the NHS in England around six per cent of staff are reported to have declined the jab.
When you consider it employs around 1.3 million people, that means about 70,000 of them are not vaccinated. In London the figure is terrifyingly worse, with 24 per cent having declined.
When you factor in the care sector, the picture gets even worse.
Nearly 30 per cent have not been vaccinated, which takes the total number of employees to as many as 200,000.
Allowing for a minute percentage who could suffer adverse reactions to the jab so obviously have the right to refuse, this is as disturbing as it is staggering and is also having a potentially deadly knock-on effect.
Analysis by the Health Service Journal found that in January an average of 450 Covid cases a day were most likely acquired in hospitals. That means some poor folk have been admitted to hospital with relatively minor health conditions but have been discharged with coronavirus, some of whom might not have survived.
As lawyers, as well as that army of human rights advocates, wring their hands as to whether or not action should be taken, this would appear blindingly straightforward.
All these people are employed in the “care” sector, so what on earth makes them think that it is in any way acceptable not to “care” about whether the people they are treating or caring for catch a deadly virus?
There are, we are told, “ethical, privacy and legal” issues here, but palpably this is not the case.the only ethic is the human responsibility to step up and not knowingly expose others to such serious risk.
As for privacy, it will remain solely between employer and employee. No one else needs to, or should, know. The legality is admittedly more tricky and while it is a grim thought to consider firing someone if they won’t accept a needle stuck in their arm, their refusal can clearly be seen to put others in jeopardy.
ITWASN’T that long ago in the health service that operating theatre staff had to be able to show they’d had a hepatitis B vaccination before they were permitted to work, so why can’t that be the same now? Put bluntly – you, your parents or grandparents, or those you love are having their lives put at risk by this selfish action.
Credit to Care UK, which operates 120 homes across the country. It said last week it will only be hiring staff who have agreed to be vaccinated.
It is totally right, as is the Chief Medical Officer for England Professor Chris Whitty who said last month it was a “professional responsibility” for all NHS staff to have the jab.
It’s as simple as “No jab means no job.” But then again, if you hold the lives of others in your hands, why should you “care” about how drastic that message is.