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      Scandal Hits U.K.’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing,’ the Original ‘Dancing With the Stars’

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      The BBC said it would add chaperones to rehearsals after allegations of abusive behavior at a hugely popular dance show that inspired international versions.For almost two decades, viewers in Britain have watched celebrities jive, waltz and cha-cha-cha on “Strictly Come Dancing,” a BBC reality television show that inspired the international “Dancing With the Stars” franchise.The format, which has been licensed to 61 other territories including the U.S., pairs professional ballroom dancers with people who are famous in other fields, from athletics and acting to politics and journalism. The amateur dancers then train intensively with their professional partners and compete in weekly live performances.Introduced in 2004, the show quickly became one of the BBC’s most popular programs, widely loved as a glitzy, family-friendly watch on weekends.But in recent months it has grabbed headlines because of a growing scandal: allegations that two professional male dancers exhibited bullying or abusive behavior toward their female dance partners during rehearsals.One former contestant, the actor Amanda Abbington, has alleged in interviews with the British media that her dance partner, Giovanni Pernice, displayed “bullying” and “aggressive behavior” and was “abusive, cruel and mean.” She declined to give further details of the behavior in interviews, saying the ongoing nature of a BBC investigation into the allegations prevented her from doing so.Ms. Abbington, who appeared in the British series “Sherlock,” cited “personal reasons” last year for leaving the dance competition during filming, but said this week that she had flagged the behavior to producers before filing an official complaint with the BBC. She said she believed that there were 50 hours of rehearsal video that could bolster her case, though they have not been made public.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.K. Royal Family Gets Financial Boost From Offshore Wind and Palaces

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      Profits at the Crown Estate doubled thanks to offshore wind deals, while visitors to royal palaces are almost back to prepandemic levels.New reports on the finances of Britain’s royal family and its ancient property portfolio have revealed a double dose of good news for the household, which has been destabilized by illness and injury in recent months.Profits from the Crown Estate, which oversees the royal family’s massive land and property holdings, jumped to £1.1 billion (about $1.4 billion) from £442.6 million in the previous year, according to the estate’s annual report, mainly thanks to deals involving the leasing of seabed sites to offshore wind producers.As a result, the money the royal family receives from the government — known as the sovereign grant — will rise to £132 million in 2025-2026, up from £86.3 million in recent years.For centuries, net profits from the Crown Estate have been passed to the government, in return for a fixed yearly payment to fund the royal family and its duties. Since 2012, this payment has taken the form of the sovereign grant, which is calculated as a percentage of the estate’s profits.King Charles previously requested that the anticipated surge in profits from the wind power deals be used for the “wider public good.” As a result, the previous government agreed to reduce the sovereign grant to 12 percent of net profits from this year onward, down from 25 percent. If the grant had remained at 25 percent, the king would have received £275 million instead of £132 million, a huge rise that could have jeopardized the royal family’s popularity at a time when much of Britain is still mired in a cost-of-living crisis.The chief executive of the Crown Estate, Dan Labbad, wrote in the annual report that the profit boost was “short term in nature,” adding that over the coming years “revenue and valuation will normalize.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Is Rachel Reeves, the Woman Taking the Helm of the U.K.’s Economy?

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      Rachel Reeves became Britain’s first female chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday, taking on one of the country’s four great offices of state, with responsibility for managing Britain’s budget.After a decade and a half of economic stagnation, Ms. Reeves, a Labour lawmaker with a reputation as a serious and steady manager, faces the tough jobs of boosting Britain’s productivity growth, a key measure of prosperity, and of reviving struggling public services.“I know the scale of the challenge that I’m likely to inherit,” Ms. Reeves told the BBC early Friday. “There’s not a huge amount of money there,” she said, adding that the party needed to unlock private investment.Ms. Reeves is expected to approach her new role with deliberation.“Labour has come a long way to regain the trust of people on their economic record and she doesn’t want to risk that,” Carys Roberts, the director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, said.For example, Labour has moved to more centrist policies in recent years, following former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing program of higher spending and widespread nationalization of industries.Ms. Reeves, 45, was elected to Parliament in 2010 in the northern city of Leeds. In a bid to prove her credibility, she has frequently referred to her traditional training as an economist during six years working at the Bank of England after college.She has emphasized her goal of creating stability after a period of international and homegrown economic shocks, including a surge in energy prices and the premiership of Liz Truss, who lasted only 49 days in office after her tax cut proposals roiled financial markets.Ms. Reeves calls her economic agenda “securonomics,” a dull-sounding portmanteau that reflects her already earnest reputation. She once told The Guardian that if you want “cartwheels” to turn to someone else.She has described “securonomics” as ensuring Britain’s economic security in a world that is fragmenting, while also ensuring the security of working people’s finances. It is inspired by the policies of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.But the call for stability is also a sign that Britons shouldn’t expect quick or drastic changes in the handling of the economy.Amid high debt levels and relatively high taxes, Ms. Reeves has vowed not to raise corporate, personal income or V.A.T. taxes and to adhere to strict debt rules. Given these restraints, she hopes that stability will induce much-needed economic growth.In practice, that is expected to mean giving more power to institutions, like the fiscal watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility, and working more closely with businesses to encourage them to ramp up private investment.“Labour are pinning a lot on the hope of economic growth, including relying on growth to enable them to spend more on services,” Ms. Roberts said. More

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      Keir Starmer es el nuevo primer ministro del Reino Unido

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      El exabogado de derechos humanos, de 61 años, carece del carisma de sus antecesores, pero lideró un cambio de rumbo para el Partido Laborista[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Keir Starmer se convirtió el viernes en el primer ministro del Reino Unido después de la decisiva victoria de su Partido Laborista en las elecciones generales.“En todo el país, la gente se despertará con la noticia de que se ha quitado un peso de encima, finalmente se ha quitado una carga de los hombros de esta nación”, dijo un exultante Starmer a sus partidarios en el centro de Londres a primera hora de la madrugada del viernes.Utilizando la analogía de un “rayo soleado de esperanza” naciente, al principio pálido y cada vez más fuerte, dijo que el país tenía “una oportunidad, después de 14 años, de recuperar su futuro”.Starmer sustituye a Rishi Sunak, el primer ministro saliente, quien tomó posesión del cargo hace menos de dos años y lo llamó para felicitarlo.Starmer, de 61 años, es un exabogado de derechos humanos y ha liderado un notable cambio de rumbo del Partido Laborista, que hace pocos años sufrió su peor derrota electoral desde la década de 1930. Ha impulsado el partido hacia el centro político, al mismo tiempo que le ha sacado provecho a los fracasos de tres primeros ministros conservadores.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nigel Farage, Right-Wing Disrupter, Elected to Parliament for the First Time

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      Nigel Farage, a supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, a driving force behind Brexit and Britain’s best known political disrupter, was elected to Parliament for the first time.The new insurgent party he leads — Reform U.K. — was projected in the national exit poll to have captured four seats, more than many analysts had predicted, in an electoral system that typically punishes small parties. His party has been buoyed by an anti-immigration platform.Mr. Farage won by a large margin in Clacton, a faded seaside town, where pre-election opinion surveys had suggested he had a strong chance of winning. He had tried and failed seven times before to be elected to Parliament.“The establishment are terrified, the Conservatives are terrified,” Mr. Farage declared gleefully in a speech last month, referring to the governing party. Britain was “a broken nation,” he added, attacking targets ranging from asylum seekers to the BBC.A polarizing, pugilistic figure and a highly skilled communicator, Mr. Farage, 60, helped the Conservatives to a landslide victory in the last general election by not running candidates from his Brexit Party in many key areas.This election, his plan was different: to destroy the Tories by poaching much of their vote, then replace — or take over — the party’s remnants. Early in the campaign, after a journalist asked if he wanted to merge his upstart party with the Conservatives, he replied: “More like a takeover, dear boy.”Reform U.K. has come under fierce criticism in recent weeks after a number of its candidates were found to have made inflammatory statements. One said that Britain should have remained neutral in the fight against the Nazis; another used antisemitic tropes by claiming that Jewish groups were “agitating for the mass import into England of Muslims.”The party has blamed some of its problems on growing pains, has dropped some candidates and has threatened to take legal action against a private company it paid to vet candidates.Last week, an undercover investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 News secretly filmed Reform campaigners in Clacton using racist and homophobic language, with one using a slur to describe the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.But for two decades he has shaped Britain’s political conversation, driving the Brexit cause, outflanking the Tories and pushing them further right. More

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      Keir Starmer Is Poised to Be Britain’s Next Prime Minister

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      Keir Starmer is all but certain to become the next prime minister of Britain, after an exit poll projected that his Labour Party would win the general election in a landslide on Thursday. The exit poll, which has accurately predicted the winner of the last five British general elections, indicated late Thursday that Labour was on course to win a commanding majority of seats in the British House of Commons. That would mean Mr. Starmer would replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who took office less than two years ago.Mr. Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer, has led a remarkable turnaround for the Labour Party, which just a few years ago suffered its worst election defeat since the 1930s. He has pulled the party to the political center while capitalizing on the failings of three Conservative prime ministers.“He has been ferociously — some would say tediously — boring in his discipline,” Jill Rutter, a research fellow at the London research group U.K. in a Changing Europe, told The New York Times recently. “He’s not going to set hearts racing, but he does look relatively prime-ministerial.”Mr. Starmer was raised in a left-wing, working-class family in Surrey, outside London. He was not close with his father; his mother, a nurse, suffered a debilitating illness that took her in and out of the hospital. Mr. Starmer became the first college graduate in his family, studying first at Leeds University, and then law at Oxford.He was named after Keir Hardie, a Scottish trade unionist who was Labour’s first leader. As a young lawyer, he represented protesters accused of libel by the fast-food chain McDonald’s, and he later rose to become Britain’s chief prosecutor and was awarded a knighthood.Elected to Parliament in 2015, he succeeded the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 and began remaking the party. He dropped Mr. Corbyn’s proposal to nationalize Britain’s energy companies and promised not to raise taxes on working families. He also committed to supporting Britain’s military, hoping to banish an anti-patriotic label that clung to Labour during the Corbyn era.Mr. Starmer also rooted out the antisemitism that had contaminated the party’s ranks under Mr. Corbyn. Though he has not drawn a link between that and his personal life, his wife, Victoria Starmer, comes from a Jewish family in London. More

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      Estalló una guerra cultural por las casas señoriales del Reino Unido. ¿Quién ganó?

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      Una batalla en torno a la historia de las casas de campo más preciadas del país ofrecía un vistazo al estado de ánimo nacional antes de unas elecciones clave.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Un cuadro en Dyrham House, una gran mansión en el suroeste de Inglaterra, ofrece una vista panorámica del puerto de Bridgetown, Barbados, con plantaciones de azúcar salpicadas a lo largo de una ladera.En otra habitación hay dos figuras talladas que representan a hombres negros arrodillados, sosteniendo sobre sus cabezas conchas de vieira. Están encadenados por los tobillos y el cuello.Estas obras pertenecieron a William Blathwayt, quien fue propietario de Dyrham a finales del siglo XVII y principios del XVIII y, como auditor general británico de las rentas de las plantaciones, supervisaba las ganancias que llegaban de las colonias.Explicar la historia de un lugar como Dyrham puede resultar polémico, como ha descubierto el National Trust, la organización benéfica de casi 130 años de antigüedad que gestiona muchas de las casas históricas más preciadas del Reino Unido.Después de que la organización renovó sus exposiciones para poner de relieve los vínculos entre decenas de sus propiedades y la explotación y la esclavitud de la época colonial, provocó la ira de algunos columnistas y académicos de derecha, que acusaron al fondo de ser “progre”, insinuaron que estaba presentando una visión“antibritánica” de la historia e iniciaron una campaña para revertir algunos de los cambios.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      This English Naval City Is a Bellwether Seat. How Do Voters Feel?

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      As voters cast their ballots in a pivotal election, many in the southern English city of Portsmouth expressed disillusionment over what they see as national and local decline.Voters streamed into a polling station in Portsmouth, a city nestled along England’s southern coast that is known for its naval base and historic dockyard, on Thursday morning as ballot workers greeted them warmly.Older couples walked hand in hand into the local church, which had been temporarily fitted out with ballot boxes, alongside parents with children in strollers, and young adults rushing in on the way to work.One by one, they weighed in on the future of the nation in a vote that polls suggested could end 14 years of Conservative-led government.“I just want to see change,” said Sam Argha, 36, who was outside the polling station on Thursday morning. “I just really want to see us do something differently.”Many people in the city expressed a similar desire for a new start at a moment of intense national uncertainty. Polls have predicted that the election could be a major turning point, with the center-left Labour Party expected to unseat the right-wing Conservative Party, possibly with a crushing landslide.Portsmouth North is considered a bellwether seat — the area has voted for the winning political party in every general election since 1974.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More