Ladies Day returns to Cheltenham festival promising ‘glamour and glory’
First and foremost, it is a huge sporting event, billed by its fans as the Olympics of jump racing – but it can also act as a social barometer, giving clues as to the state and mood of the nation.This year’s Cheltenham festival, which began on Tuesday, feels a little like a step back in time with the return of “Ladies Day” after a five-year hiatus and a reduction in the price of a pint.In 2024, a decision by the Jockey Club, which owns the racecourse, to launch a unisex “Style Wednesday” on what used to be Ladies Day was labelled “woke” by some rightwing commentators.The Jockey Club persisted with the free-for-all last year but this time Ladies Day is back and billed as a celebration of “glamour and glory”.There will be prizes for the best-dressed individual, duo and group, and the former jump jockey champion Rachael Blackmore has been appointed “head of Ladies Day”.
The Jockey Club denied it had felt under pressure to revive the event because of the “woke” jibes but said it simply wanted to attract more women and girls to racing.Guy Lavender, the chief executive of Cheltenham racecourse, said: “Our core objective is to get more women and girls coming racing, which we think we can achieve.There is a huge audience of female sports fans that we think will love coming racing.”In recent years, women have made up only about a quarter of racegoers, and early signs were that the split may be slightly more even this time.Jade Holland Cooper, the founder of the fashion brand Holland Cooper, said the return of Ladies Day felt “incredibly special”.
She said: “It’s the moment in the week when everyone truly embraces the occasion and dresses up.“Cheltenham style is often compared to Ascot or Aintree, but it’s actually quite different.It’s much more rooted in heritage: beautiful tweeds, strong tailoring and pieces that work with the elements rather than against them.”Sophie Hall, a model and presenter, and Jordan Wylie, best known for his appearances in the Channel 4 show Hunted, were to be found outside the meeting’s Holland Cooper store in matching houndstooth outfits.Hall said: “There have tended to be more men than women at Cheltenham.
I think women can sometimes think they don’t know much about the racing so can’t come.But it should be for everyone.”Zoë Gibson, on the Peachy Belts store in the shopping village, said: “Some may ask when is men’s day.But it’s every day, especially in the Guinness Village.If Ladies Day encourages more women to come to racing, it has to be a good thing.
”There was little sadness at the loss of the unisex Style Wednesday.Jonny Beardsall, a Yorkshire milliner, backed Ladies Day – but said he hoped Cheltenham had not bowed to the pressure of being called woke.“They shouldn’t take any notice – be more devil-may-care.”Another festival theme is trying to be more cost-effective to compete with the trend to head to places such as Benidorm to watch the racing in the sun with cheaper alcohol.The Jockey Club has reduced the price of a pint of Guinness from £7.
80 to £7.50 (nearly 400,000 of them are expected to be sold over the festival’s four days) and has introduced prosecco for the first time, with a bottle costing £46 compared with £85 for a bottle of house champagne.People are being allowed to move more freely around the venue with drinks and a new, more basic undercover bar and food outlet area called the Retreat has been created, a place for racegoers who do not have access to expensive hospitality areas to get out of the rain if it comes in.Lavender said pricing was an emotive issue: “It’s not about selling more pints.It’s about delivering better value.
We know that the festival is hugely popular but we have to get the value proposition right.”
Farage delivers energy sermon at the pump – just don’t mention the war
Let’s try to look on the bright side. At least Nigel Farage wasn’t personally out of pocket. There again, he seldom is. The whole point of being Nige is to never pay for anything if you can help it. Unless you fancy buying a few shares in Kwasi Kwarteng’s “get rich quick” crypto scheme
Lammy defends jury reforms against claims they will worsen racial bias in legal system – as it happened
As we have already mentioned in the blog, MPs will debate and vote on the principles of the proposals in the Courts and Tribunals Bill during its second reading today, with the legislation facing a significant backbench rebellion in the Commons.The justice secretary, David Lammy, has been defending the plans to cut the number of jury trials in England and Wales after intense criticism from legal professionals who argue they erode constitutional principles. Critics also say the plans risk worsening racial bias within the criminal justice system and won’t be that effective at clearing the backlog.Defending his proposed changes, Lammy said:double quotation markThe status quo of the broken system does produce injustice, and the burden of that delay is not evenly shared.Black people are 14% more likely to be victims of crime
Nigel Farage accused of U-turn as he says UK should keep out of Iran war
Nigel Farage has been accused of making a U-turn after he said Britain should not get involved in Donald Trump’s war with Iran.His comments on Tuesday contrasted with his previous assertion that the “gloves need to come off” when dealing with Iran.Anna Turley, chair of the Labour party, said: “Reform wanted the UK to go to war in Iran and are now trying to cover up the consequences for British families, including higher fuel prices.”While Farage has insisted he does not heed public opinion, a YouGov poll showed Reform’s 2024 voters are split, with nearly a quarter (24%) wanting the UK to actively join the attack on Iran and 63% supporting either a retaliatory or defensive position.The conflict has exposed existing fault lines among senior Reform figures over foreign policy and the extent to which the UK should take a more isolationist “Britain First” position – an echo of splits in Trump’s own conservative base in the US
Ministers to ask 100 UK citizens to advise on digital ID plans
Ministers will ask 100 people randomly selected from across Britain to feed into the government’s consultation on digital IDs as the government hopes to combat conspiracy theories about how it intends to use the technology.Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, will announce the details of the consultation on Tuesday, amid scepticism from parts of the public and within the government about the idea.As part of the consultation, ministers will announce a “citizens’ assembly” of people to feed in their views in an effort to hear the concerns of non-experts.Jones is also facing resistance from some of his own colleagues, with the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, understood to have ruled out using the technology to help allocate special educational needs funding.Jones said: “Public trust in the state has been declining for years, whoever has been in power – and people too often feel shut out of decisions
So Badenoch, Farage and Blair think the Iran war is a great idea? Hmm … | John Crace
There have been any number of opportunities for people to decide they wanted no part of America’s war with Iran. The first was after the US had launched its first wave of strikes. To be fair, this was the moment Keir Starmer and most of the UK reckoned enough was enough and that our involvement would be limited to defensive strikes only.You couldn’t really fault the logic. Did the UK really want to be part of a war that was illegal in most versions of international law and for which the Americans had no clear vision of how it might end? Other than Donald Trump gets bored and lets everyone else clear up his mess
Ministers must act more quickly on deepfakes to protect women and girls, Kendall says
Ministers need to act more quickly to combat fast-changing threats from technology such as deepfakes, the technology secretary has said, as she warned about the risks women and girls face online.Liz Kendall said on Monday that technology was developing at such a pace that it was outstripping the government’s ability to regulate it, even suggesting there could be regular annual reviews of regulations as happens at the budget.The technology secretary was speaking to the Guardian after hosting a roundtable with tech companies including Meta, Snapchat, Reddit, Match Group, Google, TikTok and OnlyFans, during which she urged them to do more to tackle online misogyny.She said: “It took eight years for [the Online Safety] Act to come in, and the technology has developed so rapidly it hasn’t kept pace. Every year MPs have a finance bill to deal with the budget
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