Design boss behind new Jaguar leaves JLR weeks after change of CEO
The Jaguar Land Rover design boss behind the Range Rover and the polarising Jaguar relaunch has abruptly departed the business just four months after its new chief executive took charge.Gerry McGovern left the role of chief creative officer on Monday after 20 years at the business in which he oversaw the design of some of the company’s most successful cars as well as the launch of a new-look, pink electric Jaguar that drew the ire of Donald Trump.Britain’s largest carmaker appointed PB Balaji as chief executive in August.Balaji, an Indian national, was previously the chief financial officer of Tata Motors, the Indian owner of JLR.Balaji was due to take over the reins of a business that was performing well, generating nearly three years of consecutive quarterly profits.
However, any chance of a smooth transition was dashed by a crippling cyber-attack in August that stopped all production at JLR’s factories.JLR declined to comment on the departure and McGovern was still listed on the company’s website on Wednesday.Autocar India, which first reported on McGovern’s departure, said he had been removed with immediate effect.David Bailey, a professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham, said the abrupt removal “has sent shock waves through the automotive world”.He said it would herald “much more than a routine management reshuffle” but rather “the symbolic end of an era” and was perhaps a sign that Tata was looking to exert more control.
McGovern returned to Land Rover in 2004 after an earlier stint and rose to be in charge of designing its key products, including its flagship Range Rover, its bestselling Range Rover Evoque and several other models,His stewardship included hiring Victoria Beckham as a creative design executive in 2010,In 2017, tensions emerged after Beckham said at the launch of a special VB Evoque: “I’ve designed a car that I want to drive, a car I think [her husband] David wants to drive,” McGovern later said: “She didn’t design the car … I’ve forgotten more than that woman will ever know about [car] designing – to be a car designer takes years,”McGovern was elevated to the role of JLR’s chief creative officer in 2021 by the then chief executive, Thierry Bolloré, giving him oversight of the struggling Jaguar brand as well.
McGovern retained the role under Bolloré’s successor, Adrian Mardell.Bolloré had scrapped an advanced plan for an electric Jaguar that followed on from previous models, and McGovern was tasked with completely overhauling the brand in an effort to end years of weak sales.The product he came up with was a major departure from previous, fairly traditional Jaguars.The Type 00 targeted wealthy, younger, international buyers rather than going head to head with BMW as another executive saloon car.It featured a large, angular design with no rear window, and the initial concept design was shown in pink and electric blue.
The company faced a ferocious and at times hate-filled backlash from some quarters after a teaser campaign featured several androgynous models.Elon Musk and Trump criticised what Trump called a “stupid, and seriously WOKE advertisement”.McGovern, seen as assertive and sometimes combative by people with whom he has worked, said the car displayed “fearless creativity”.McGovern’s departure raises questions about how much of the concept car will survive into production, although prototype models were at a fairly advanced stage before the hack disrupted production plans.A person who has driven the car said it would wow drivers.
The new electric Range Rover overseen by McGovern will also be a crucial car in JLR’s transition away from petrol and diesel.The design is nearly identical to the petrol version, but sales are expected to be delayed because of the cyber-attack.JLR had initially planned to make the first deliveries by the end of this year.
Advertising giant WPP relegated from FTSE 100 after nearly 30 years
WPP has been relegated from the FTSE 100 after nearly 30 years, as the advertising multinational struggles to stem an exodus of clients and match the artificial intelligence and data capabilities of rivals.The market valuation of WPP, once the world’s largest advertising group, has plummeted from about £24bn in 2017 to £3.1bn.The company’s share price has plunged by two-thirds this year and it has been relegated from the blue chip index after a quarterly reshuffle, confirmed when stock markets closed on Wednesday afternoon.British Land, which was the most valuable company in the FTSE 250, was promoted to the FTSE 100 to take the spot vacated by WPP
Post Office avoids fine over leak of wrongfully convicted operators’ names
The Post Office has avoided a fine over a data breach that resulted in the mistaken online publication of the names and addresses of more than 500 post office operators it had been pursuing during the Horizon IT scandal.The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has reprimanded the Post Office over the breach, in which the company’s press office accidentally published an unredacted version of a legal settlement document with the operators on its website.The ICO said the data breach in June last year involving the release of names, home addresses and operator status of 502 out of the 555 people involved in the successful litigation action against the Post Office led by Sir Alan Bates had been “entirely preventable”.“The people affected by this breach had already endured significant hardship and distress as a result of the IT scandal,” said Sally Anne Poole, the head of investigations at the ICO.“They deserved much better than this
Doom, gloom … and Belle Gibson? The top Google searches in Australia in 2025
We may, indeed, be living in the end of times, with natural disasters, death and politics dominating Google searches in Australia in 2025.Cyclone Alfred was the number one overall Google search term by Australians in 2024, according to the annual search results list released by the tech company on Thursday.It was followed by American political activist Charlie Kirk, who also topped Wikipedia’s list of the year’s most-read articles after being fatally shot in September, and in third place was Australian federal election 2025.When we weren’t voting or doomscrolling, we were watching television. Belle Gibson, the Australian wellness scammer and subject of the hit show Apple Cider Vinegar, made it into the overall top 10 list, as did serial killer Ed Gein from the series Monster
Amazon and the tightening grip of capitalism | Letters
Yanis Varoufakis argues that Amazon marks a shift to “technofeudalism”, claiming its ownership of digital infrastructure forces capitalists, governments and users to pay it economic rents (How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism, 27 November). This rests on an idealised view of capitalism. Early capitalism saw similar dynamics: the East India Company, backed by the British state, controlled trade routes, exploited resources and wielded political power, enabling it to charge above-market prices for commodities such as tea and spices.In Capital, Karl Marx noted that English landlords helped establish capitalism by dispossessing peasants and commodifying land. They earned monopoly rents from their exclusive control of this productive resource – a portion of surplus value originally created by exploited labour and first appropriated by industrial capitalists before being transferred to landowners
Maro Itoje eyes World Cup glory after England dodge big guns in 2027 draw
Maro Itoje has set his sights on Rugby World Cup glory in Australia in 2027 after England were handed a potentially favourable path through the tournament when the draw was made in Sydney on Wednesday.England, who have risen to third in the world rankings after an 11-match winning streak, emerged on the other side of the draw from the reigning world champions, South Africa, the three-times winners New Zealand and France.England are in Pool F with Wales, Tonga and Zimbabwe at the expanded 24-team event with Italy, Australia, Ireland and Argentina possible opponents in the last 16 and beyond.“Our ambition is to do very well and win this tournament,” Itoje, the England captain, said. “But to do that we know we have to make sure we get our preparation right and the next two years leading to the World Cup is massive
Cummins conundrum is key as Australia try not to overthink tactics
Will the captain return? Will Nathan Lyon play? Who will open? Ashes hostilities are renewed and the hosts don’t need to ask too many questionsAt last, at long last, an Ashes series is about to start. It feels that way, anyway, after so many months of lead-up, such an eternal blur of preview and prediction and preamble, were supposed to reach their end – only to find that the end was instead a momentary interruption, a hiccup, an indigestion-dream of a Test from Perth, a contest done in the span of 31 hours, leaving everyone to return to punditry and prognostication for a further 11 blasted and benighted days.We are, for pity’s sake, in a discussion cycle about Ben Stokes correctly applying a bike helmet while not on a bike, or Steve Smith correctly applying eye-black stickers in his Tim Tebow tribute act, or the archaeologically uncovered fact that Australian teams have a good record at the Gabba. Like farmers waiting for the rains, we are praying for play to start to let us talk about something that has happened, rather than something that might. Even the day-night format means another wait, four more hours than would usually be the case before the balm of the first ball
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