Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15405992

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Northern city reports 20% more incidents than the capital, despite having a Jewish population a fraction of the size

More antisemitic incidents were recorded in Manchester than in London last year, despite the capital having a Jewish community almost seven times larger, according to figures released on Thursday.

There were 586 antisemitic crimes ? including street attacks, threats, vandalism and desecration of Jewish property ? across the whole of Britain last year.

This was the fourth highest figure since records began 28 years ago, according to the Community Security Trust, which records antisemitic incidents.

Manchester was the scene of 244 crimes, while in London there were 201. This was despite London having a Jewish population of 149,800 while the figure for Manchester is 21,700. One incident recorded by the CST involved "extreme violence" as a Jewish family were filling up their car with petrol in Manchester.

"As one of the family members crossed the forecourt in order to make payment, a car containing two white women reversed sharply into her, knocking her to the ground," the report said.

"The occupants then got out of their car, shouted 'dirty Jew' and spat at the injured woman lying on the ground, before getting back into the car and driving away."In other incidents in Manchester and Salford, three children were verbally abused and had a lit firework thrown at them; eggs were thrown at men outside a synagogue after Saturday prayers; and a man in Salford had his skullcap torn off his head and was punched in the face.

The report said the rise "continues the pattern" of more incidents occurring in "Greater Manchester than should be the case, given the relative sizes of the Jewish communities in Manchester and in London". But it said this was mainly the result of improved reporting of incidents by Manchester's Jewish community to CST and to Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

Overall, the number of incidents nationally fell by more than a third from 2009, when the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces was accompanied by a record 929 incidents.

Incidents in the UK in 2011 included 92 assaults, 63 incidents of vandalism, 394 incidents of abuse and 29 direct threats.

Mark Gardner of CST said: "Antisemitism is not the most important feature in British Jewish life, but it remains a serious problem in some parts of society and retains the potential to worsen significantly in reaction to external events."

Last year, a taxi driver called Taha Osman was spared jail after hurling racist abuse outside King David School in Manchester. The 36-year-old screamed "all Jewish children must die" in front of horrified onlookers. He was given a 12-month community order.

The northern city has large Jewish communities in Broughton Park, North Manchester, Bury and Trafford.

Crimes in Greater Manchester included 46 assaults, 21 incidents of damage or desecration, 15 threats and 162 incidents of abusive behaviour.

Chief Superintendent Jon Rush, divisional commander for Bury, said: "What we must acknowledge is that the number of antisemitic attacks is far too high." "People in our Jewish community should be able to safely and freely go about their business without fear of being attacked.

"Any incident motivated by religious or racial hatred is abhorrent and can cause people a great deal of upset.

"We do not want people to suffer in silence and think they should not speak out when they are subject to any form of abuse ? we want them to tell us so that we can bring the offenders to justice."

He said the figures were partly explained by increased levels of reporting in Greater Manchester.

"We have run a number of successful initiatives in our communities that are designed to encourage anyone who is a victim of an antisemitic incident to report it to either ourselves or the CST, with whom we are working with very hard to tackle this sort of crime," he added.

Rush said for several years, Greater Manchester police and the CST had worked together over the Jewish high holy days to deter antisemitism and criminal activity by providing accessible policing and reassurance. He said his force had received positive feedback from the Jewish community.The operations included police patrols in Bury and Salford before and after services at synagogues. Mobile police stations were also situated nearby so people could report incidents.

? This article was amended on 2 February 2012. The original said Manchester was the scene of 242 crimes, when in fact there were 244 antisemitic crimes recorded by the Community Security Trust in Manchester. This has been corrected.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/02/more-antisemitic-crimes-manchester-than-london

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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13647404

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? Tesco and Marks & Spencer expected to report drop in sales
? JD Sports to pay £20m for Blacks Leisure stores

The dire state of the high street will be drawn into focus this week as two of the nation's best known brands will join a growing list of retail casualties.

Blacks Leisure, the outdoor retailer, will be sold in a prepack administration to rival JD Sports for about £20m and most of the lingerie chain La Senza will enter administration after Middle Eastern retailer Alshaya picks up about 60 of the most profitable stores.

It comes as new figures show 183 retailers went into administration last year ? a 10% rise on 2010 ? and many more, including Hawkin's Bazaar, Past Times and Barratts Shoes, remain on the critical list.

The roll call of high street failures will continue to grow this year, and many of the biggest names in retailing are preparing to announce big drops in critically-important Christmas trading. Argos, HMV and Game Group are expected to report a 10% drop in sales against last year.

Even Tesco and Marks & Spencer are expected to this week reveal they had a turkey of a Christmas. City experts predict Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, will deliver its worst British Christmas sales performance in decades.

Tesco's house brokers, JP Morgan Cazenove and Deutsche Bank, are forecasting a 1.5-2% decline in sales from core British stores in the six weeks to 7 January.

Marks & Spencer, the bellwether of the high street with more than 21 million customers, is expected to post a 1.5% decline in clothing and homeware sales in the 13 weeks to 31 December.

Stephen Robertson, director general of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said the number of retail failures was "alarming".

"2011 was a tough year with virtually no real terms growth for retailers. In such a competitive sector there will always be businesses that do well while others struggle but seeing such a high number of failures in the final quarter of the year is particularly alarming," he said. "The next few months are bound to be quieter as consumers rein in spending after Christmas."

Robertson said the collapse of retailers "leaves gaps on our high streets and can result in thousands of job losses". Research by Deloitte shows 183 retailers in England and Wales collapsed into administration last year compared to 165 in 2010.

Theo Paphitis, the Dragon's Den star and former owner of La Senza, tweeted over the weekend that Lion Capital, the lingerie group's private equity owner, had agreed to sell about 60 stores to Alshaya.

"The bad news re @lasenza is that the other 80 shops will be closed down or put in the hands of Admin KPMG with resulting job losses..Sad !," Paphitis added.

A spokesman for Lion said: "We can confirm that Alshaya, a leading international retail franchise operator, is in advanced discussions with La Senza regarding a potential acquisition of part of the UK La Senza business. Further announcements regarding this transaction and plans for La Senza's stores and employees will be made in due course."

Meanwhile, supermarket group Morrisons is reportedly thinking about buying up some failed Best Buy megastores to grow its Kiddicare brand.

The Bradford-based grocer is understood to be in advanced talks with Carphone Warehouse about the 11 'big box' sites, which are in the process of closing after a failed joint venture with US electricals group Best Buy, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/09/retail-industry-bleak-christmas-trading

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Virgin Money's relaunch of Northern Rock has got off to a good start - even sponsored team Newcastle beat Manchester United ? but can it last?

Sir Richard Branson is never known for a missing a publicity stunt ? and so tomorrow the entrepreneur will be fronting the formal launch of his Virgin empire's takeover of Northern Rock. Braced for the chill January wind howling through the Newcastle headquarters of the former state-owned lender as he unveils his new bank ? reminiscent of the howls of protest when Virgin won the bidding process ? he will be comforted by the warm reception that the £747m deal has received since its formal completion on New Year's Day.

Just hours after clinching the two-year sponsorship of Newcastle United ? the Virgin Money logo was hastily sewn over the more familiar Northern Rock logo on players' shirts ? the underdogs thrashed Manchester United 3-0 last Wednesday. The first product launch a day later was welcomed by personal finance experts: a savings account offering a competitive 2.85% regardless of whether the deposits are placed through one of Northern Rock's 75 branches, online, by post or over the phone.

As a £10m advertising campaign kicks off tonight, Jayne-Anne Gadhia, chief executive of Branson's Virgin Money business, heralded the savings products as "simple, fair and transparent". "They have an attractive headline rate, without a bonus, offering good value for customers," she says. "There are no differences in rate whether the customer chooses an Isa or a standard savings account. What's more, customers can choose to operate their account online, through a branch or over the telephone and still benefit from the same great rate."

Rivals immediately began to gripe about just how long such promises would be maintained. And Gadhia, who is also awaiting the verdict from the National Audit Office on whether the takeover was good value for taxpayers, may find her admission that Virgin Money intends to charge customers a monthly fee for current accounts ? when they are launched ? is not so warmly welcomed.

James Daley, money editor at consumer organisation Which?, says: "Virgin has got very noble intentions but they are entering a mature market and it's going to be very difficult to change behaviour. Customers don't have any appetite for paying."

Branson's foray into the banking market is not the first attempt to crack a sector dominated by four main players ? bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and HSBC. Virgin Money itself has been around since 1995, offering savings, credit cards, mortgages, and insurance products online, and opening two high street branches last year.

Other new entrants have made a lot of noise but few inroads, such as Tesco Bank, which this weekend was refusing to say when current accounts might be launched. Others, such as Metro Bank, have launched on a small scale but with large ambitions.

Then there are the would-be banks ? including Walton & Co, fronted by banks analyst Sandy Chen, and NBNK, run by former Northern Rock boss Gary Hoffman ? that have so far been unable to achieve their goals.

Chen, who is now an analyst at Cenkos, reckons there are a number of factors that motivate new entrants. "The bulk of the new entrants and prospective entrants have identified the same gap ? proper banking for retail customers and small and medium enterprises [SMEs]. A lot of us are talking about higher service, direct contact with experienced bankers, and charging was probably an element of that," he says.

Much depends on which part of the financial services industry new entrants are trying to crack. Sir John Vickers's independent commission on banking (ICB) found that over the last decade new entrants had been successful in winning market share in credit cards ? as much as 18% ? but had much more limited success in current accounts (less than 2% in market share).

Even in mortgages and savings products, new contenders have struggled since the 2008 banking crisis to register market shares of much more than 5%. Before the crisis, it was easier for new players to start selling mortgages because they could obtain cheap funds from the financial markets to lend out.

The commission points out that only Metro Bank ? which has 10 branches and hopes to launch 16 more this year, but refuses to say how many accounts it has opened ? is the only recent new challenger in the personal current account market.

The ICB also noted that the market has become more concentrated since the banking crisis. The authorities allowed Santander-owned Abbey National to buy Alliance & Leicester and then the mortgage book of Bradford & Bingley and, perhaps most controversially, allowed Lloyds TSB to rescue HBOS even though that acquisition broke competition rules.

Hence the stipulation from the EU that Lloyds must sell off 632 branches (Royal Bank of Scotland has already clinched a similar Brussels-mandated deal to sell 318 branches to Santander) ? although the commission notes that even a disposal of this scale provides a current account market share of only 4.6%, which it says is at, "the borderline of sub-scale banks that failed to grow significantly in the past, and is smaller than most previous challengers over the past decade".

The commission had mulled the idea of bundling the Lloyds sell-off with the Northern Rock branches. Eventually it backed away from this proposal, but reckons that to be an effective competitor a bank needs 6% of the market for current accounts.

If the Co-operative Bank is successful with its bid for the Lloyds branches, after seeing off NBNK in the preliminary bid stages, its market share of current accounts will be nearly 7%. But Virgin Money and Northern Rock are coming from a standing start in that market and Virgin could be hampered by its decision to charge (though it will also offer its banking customers access to other parts of the Virgin empire).

If it can convince customers to pay a monthly fee, the "big four" banks will be keen to follow, as they often argue that the current "free banking" model is uneconomic and unfair.

But even banks that do not charge for current accounts find it tough to persuade customers to switch. The ICB has required banks to set up a new system to make it easier to change banks by September next year. Daley notes that, for now, switching is often achieved through bribery. "If you want customers you've got to buy them. Co-op was offering £200 to switch current accounts just before Christmas."

And Tesco, which has been talking about launching a full-service bank for at least two years, is waiting to see how effective the new switching system will be. It is only now ? three years after buying out RBS's 50% stake in their joint banking venture ? that existing savings and insurance products will be completely transferred to Tesco Bank, which says mortgages will finally be launched "in the coming months".

Current accounts, though, are still in "development phase". "Our launch timings are not yet confirmed but will be driven by delivering the right product ? as well as the speed of implementation of new industry-wide systems to help customers switch current accounts," a Tesco Bank spokesman said.

Clearly, getting a new bank off the ground is not easy. Mark Stephens, deputy chief executive of Aldermore Bank, which largely focuses on small businesses, warns: "There is a huge regulatory framework and an infrastructure you've got to have in place? It takes time."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/08/virgin-money-takes-over-northern-rock

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Shareholders set to win right to block soaring executive pay under plans being drawn up by the government

Shareholders are to win a legal right to block sky-high pay awards to company executives under radical plans for an assault on "fat cat" earnings drawn up by the government. Senior ministers, including the business secretary, Vince Cable, are backing a move that would give shareholders an effective veto over pay deals they deem unacceptable.

David Cameron confirmed the move and said he was determined to end the "merry-go-round" of super-rich bosses rubber-stamping each others' inflated deals and being rewarded for failure: "Let's empower the shareholders by having a straight, shareholder vote on top pay packages," he said. "The market for top people isn't working; it needs to be sorted out."

The move by ministers, which would require legislation, came to light as the main parties scrambled to occupy the high ground over executive pay, ahead of the politically charged bank bonus season. It reflects a growing consensus at Westminster that executive pay is out of control and has to be tackled, particularly at a time when many people are losing their jobs and those on modest earning are having their pay frozen.

In the past financial year, the directors of FTSE 100 companies have seen a 49% increase in total earnings, taking average pay to £2.7m. Although bonuses will probably be down on last year, the hefty sums awarded will further highlight the growing chasm between rich and poor and fuel complaints that the government is too soft on the City.

Labour, whose leader, Ed Miliband, has called for a "fairer and better capitalism", challenged the government to back all the recommendations of the independent High Pay Commission in order to increase transparency and accountability in the boardroom and the City. Currently shareholders have a right to vote on pay awards, but the vote is "advisory" and often takes place only after decisions have been made on executive pay. Under the plans being drawn up by cabinet ministers, the vote would, for the first time, have legal force, so that executives would be subject to the democratic will of shareholders over pay.

Cameron criticised boardroom cronies who helped each other "fill their boots" while the country was being forced to tighten its belt. "We've got to deal with the merry-go-round where there's too many cases of remuneration committee members sitting on each other's boards, patting each other's backs and handing out each other's pay rises," he said.

"We need to redefine the word 'fair'. We need to try to give people a sense that we have a vision at the end of this, of a fairer, better economy, a fairer, better society, where if you work hard and do the right thing you get rewarded."

Anger among shareholders and the public at soaring executive pay has been growing in recent years. Shareholder rebellions have become increasingly common. Advertising giant WPP's management received a stinging rebuke from investors last year, with 42% of shareholders voting against the remuneration report. Shareholder activists objected to the fact that Mark Read, the head of WPP Digital, received a pay rise of 31% to £425,000 in January.

Other reforms being considered by ministers include ending the "cosy cartel" that allows top executives to set each other's pay, by bringing outsiders on to remuneration committees, and introducing rules to force executives to take more of their pay in shares that cannot be cashed in for at least five years.

The High Pay Commission said executive remuneration was out of control. It cited the pay of the head of Barclays, which rose by nearly 5,000% in 30 years, a period in which average wages had risen only threefold. It made 12 recommendations, including:

? Greater transparency in the calculation of executive pay, to end the "closed shop" on pay decisions.

? Putting employees and other "outsiders" on remuneration committees.

? Publishing the top 10 executive pay packages outside the boardroom in order to illustrate the sums earned by senior traders at investment banks.

? Forcing companies to publish a pay ratio between the highest paid executive and the company median.

? Requiring companies to publish a single total pay figure for boardroom members, including pension benefits.

Will Hutton, Observer columnist and author of an independent review of fair pay delivered to the government last March, called for companies and the public sector to publish annually the five-year trend of the ratio of top pay to median pay and justify upward movement. "Citizens, workers and shareholders would have the ammunition to challenge undeserved top pay," he said.

Deborah Hargreaves, who chairs the commission and is a former business editor of the Guardian, said: "We urge the government to be bold in their reforms and not be put off by the strong possibility of a backlash from the business lobby. The public are right behind the campaign in this new era of austerity."

Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, said: "We have set three tests for the government to meet, based on the principles of transparency, accountability and fairness. Anything less than the full implementation of these measures by the prime minister will fall short of what is required to empower those who ultimately own our businesses."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/07/david-cameron-fat-cat-pay

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French women who have had defective cosmetic surgery were once ignored, but the 'pipettes' are making their voices heard

They call themselves the "pipettes", a group of 30 French women, who like hundreds of thousands of others caught up in global heath scare, are walking around with a potential timebomb in the shape of defective breast implants.

Until recently in France, the prevalent view, if anyone bothered to have one, was that by undergoing surgery for cosmetic reasons they were paying the price of their own vanity. But in November 2011, pipette Edwige Ligonèche, 53, died of a rare lymph cancer, three years after an implant made by the French company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) ruptured in her left breast, and France woke up to a health scandal.

"I swore to Edwige that if things ended badly for her, I'd make sure it didn't result in general indifference," said Alexandra Blachère, president of a group of PIP implant patients. She kept her promise. After a public outcry, the French government has launched investigations into the scandal, police inquiries are under way and the European Union is reviewing its regulations.

There is a tragic sense of deja vu to this. A year ago, health minister Xavier Bertrand issued a mea culpa over the failure of the French health authorities in another devastating scandal.

The diabetic drug Mediator, wrongly used by doctors as a slimming aid, had been prescribed for more than a decade despite fears over its safety and despite being linked to 2,000 deaths. Officials, it appeared, had ignored warnings of its dangers.

Bertrand promised reform, but doctors and patients now fear the two scandals are just the tip of an iceberg of malpractice and potentially deadly deception in the health and pharmaceutical industry.

The implant scandal has again thrown the spotlight on France's health watchdog, AFSSAPS (the Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé), which has a ?115.5m (£95.5m) budget, employs nearly 1,000 full-time staff, almost 2,000 part time experts and has three laboratories.

The agency, formed in 1998 after a scandal over blood contaminated with HIV, was to "evaluate the benefits and the risks linked to the use of health products" making sure they were "as safe as possible". Although given no role in approving medical devices such as breast implants, it is supposed to be aware if such devices cause health concerns.

However, AFSSAPS claims it was unaware of repeated health alerts over PIP implants since 2000, when the US Food and Drug Administration inspected the company's factory.

Although the FDA sent and later published a warning letter to PIP saying its implants did not meet health standards and noted there had been 120 complaints about them, AFSSAPS insists it never knew about the letter.

There were other warnings. Christian Marinetti, president of a plastic surgery clinic in Marseille, repeatedly told AFSSAPS from February 2008 onwards about PIP implants rupturing. Finally, after reporting 14 incidents with no reply he sent a recorded delivery letter to the agency denouncing a "health scandal".

When that went unanswered, he sent another. This prompted agency inspectors to pay a surprise visit to the PIP factory in south-eastern France in February 2010, where they found unauthorised gel was being used.

Jean-Claude Ghislain, director of evaluation of medical devices at AFSSAPS, has said: "There was a falsification of documentation, which obviously made audits very difficult."

But PIP has said it was able to hide incriminating documentation and substandard material because it was given notice of audit visits.

Laurent Gaudon, lawyer for some of the PIP victims, said the agency should have heeded the warnings long before 2010. "The US specifically banned PIP silicone breast implants in 2006, surgeons in Marseille raised the alarm in 2008," he said. "Why did it take AFSSAPS so long to realise there might be something wrong?"

"Is the PIP implant scandal the tip of the iceberg?" asked L'Express magazine this week. Pierre Faure, president of the medical devices committee for the Paris hospital authorities, thinks it might be. "Around 20% of implantable medical devices around today have not benefited from clinical trials proving their harmlessness after three, four or five years," he said. As part of promised reforms, AFSSAPS is due be replaced by a new body, ANSM, which will have a wider remit. But the French public need to be reassured that this is more than a rearrangement of letters.

Irène Frachon, a doctor who highlighted the Mediator scandal, said France needs to accept the legal principle of class action ? which does not exist in French law ? to provide a "counter-power" to the manufacturers whose chief concern is profit.

""We shouldn't be surprised that industrial companies will cross the line and put people's lives in danger to boost their own turnover," she said.

"We need stricter regulation and greater vigilance because medicines and medical devices and drugs are not cars. But the industrials rely on finance, so we have to hit them where it hurts; in the pocket. If the laboratories know if they do something wrong they could face a class action they may think twice. At the moment, it's a David and Goliath fight and the victims are being crushed."

Gaudon said his clients were suffering terrible anguish. "They are terrified, living under a threat, wondering if they're going to get cancer in 10, in 20 years," he said. "The company has acted without scruples and without any compassion for the victims."

There is certainly not much sympathy for the pipettes ? or for the estimated 400,000 women worldwide with PIP implants ? from the head of the company, Jean-Claude Mas, 72, currently under investigation for "aggravated deception". Asked by police if he had anything to say to those women living with a sword of Damocles over them, Mas replied: "Nothing."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/06/french-breast-implant-patients-pipettes

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After sitcoms and serious drama, Olivia Colman is about to start West End rehearsals in a Noel Coward classic

Tomorrow morning, Olivia Colman is alarmed to remind herself, she is due at the first rehearsal for a West End play. "It is Hay Fever by Noël Coward. And I am very nervous about going back on the stage. I am playing Myra, or Myrna, is it?"

Colman will be appearing alongside Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Northam, David Haig and Freddie Fox, but the list of illustrious co-stars does not help. "I used to do stage all the time, but it has been such a long time. I feel they are all going to be shaking their heads soon enough, saying to each other, 'I can see we are going to have to carry this one.'"

The 37-year-old has applied her subversive wit to a wide selection of critically acclaimed television comedies over the past decade, from Peep Show to Green Wing and Rev, but recently pulled a switch on her audience by proving she can deliver uncompromising emotion, too. Her performance in Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur, in which she played a charity shop worker enduring hidden domestic violence, won her best actress at the British Independent Film Awards in November, and her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher's daughter Carol in director Phyllida Lloyd's film Iron Lady was last week saluted by critics.

"I don't believe any of the Thatcher family have seen it yet. I think they have decided that if they see it they will do so in their own time, which seems right, although I know Phyllida did ask if they wanted to see it first."

Colman researched her role as the prime minister's daughter by watching back-to-back tapes of the 2009 series of I'm a Celebrity? Get Me Out of Here, the jungle-based reality TV show in which Carol unexpectedly triumphed.

"I know it seems a bit silly to play someone without meeting them, but seeing the show was very good, because it meant I watched her when she was unaware of the cameras. Although the gung-ho, fearless Carol of the bush is not the same woman as in my scenes in the film, which are much more emotional."

Residual affection for the hearty and occasionally maladroit Carol is based, Colman thinks, on her eccentricity.

"I think the English understand that it must be very difficult to grow up in the shadow of someone like her mother, although in America the reaction is different, I hear, because the younger generation do not know anything about Margaret Thatcher, let alone her daughter. You wonder at first how they could not know, but of course they don't."

When it comes to the politics of the film, Colman holds the party line, embellishing the director's view that the film is not about Thatcher's policies or her social impact. "I am not in the same camp as Thatcher politically myself, but the great thing about the film is it looks at how powerful she was and how contentious a figure she was and shows she did it with dignity. It is about the fading of powers. Dementia is such a terrifying thing for all of us, and we are particularly bad at coping with old people in this country."

This subject, she says, coupled with "the more universal family dynamic in the story", drew her to the screenplay. "If you hate Thatcher, you are not going to be satisfied. Although if you look at the film objectively, you will see she is shown as someone who both impressed millions of people and is thought to have ruined millions of lives too."

Decisions about which parts to take ? and there are growing conflicts ? are based on the scripts.

"If when I read it I can't imagine making it sound real, then I just can't do it," says Colman. "If a script is good, you are 10 steps into the part just reading it. But my choices are not all down to my taste. It is about people you have worked with before. A series like Look Around You, which I did with Peter Serafinowicz, was down to luck. He asked me and he has very good taste in comedy."

Aside from amusing early appearances in the AA's "Kev and Bev" adverts, Colman began to be recognised in 2003 as sensible Sophie from Peep Show, alongside David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

"I suppose I am very sensible," she says. "I mean, here I am now and I'm building a fire and making a cup of tea at the same time as talking. But in fact I was slightly badly behaved at school and got in trouble. I would get a bee in my bonnet about something I thought wasn't right, and I would ape about too, to make everybody laugh. That was my way through my girls' school, because I wasn't very academic."

Funny was never going to be the whole story though. Colman wanted to be taken seriously as an actress and admits running through her awards acceptance speech from the age of eight. "I suppose everybody who wants to perform does that."

She grew up in Norfolk and, after a truncated spell studying in Cambridge, trained at Bristol Old Vic.

"They tried to knock the edges off my funny voice, so that I can do 'received pronounciation'. But my voice is working for me now. It's not really a Norfolk accent, I have moved about a bit and at school I wanted to sound like everybody else."

It was Colman's agent who nudged her into pulling away from a lucrative run of comic roles. "She said not to panic, but that doing straight-girl parts and giving Mitchell and Webb the feed lines was not going to make it easy for me to do other work. So I talked to David and Robert about it and they just said: 'We wondered when you were going to say that.' It was a hard decision though."

Since Considine's Tyrannosaur, the break from sketch shows has proved its worth. "People know I can do other things now. That is all down to Paddy, who stuck his neck out for me." Yet Colman is not turning her back on comedy. "If people still trust me with a funny line, then that is fine. If that is what gets me work."

The popularity of the BBC's Rev, in which she plays the wife of Tom Hollander's vicar, Adam Smallbone, has brought a new breed of fan. "We tried to do some guerrilla filming for the series at the Greenbelt religious festival, but in the end we couldn't use any of the footage because it was like being the Stones. We were mobbed by people saying they loved what we had done with Rev. They are normal human beings, after all, and fed up with constantly being portrayed as starchy."

Colman adds that, while she is not a believer, she is happy that the show is good PR for the church. "Adam Smallbone is an everyman: good, kind, worried and troubled. I have enormous admiration for people that do believe. Maybe one day I will take that step."

Colman lives with her writer husband, Ed Sinclair, and their two small boys. "It is easier now the boys are at school. I don't feel so bad leaving them all at home."

Colman met Sinclair in a student production of Alan Ayckbourn's Table Manners. "I saw his right profile as I entered the room and felt a thunderbolt. He didn't feel it, though. It took me about six weeks to convince him. At least it wasn't six years."

The suggestion that offers of work may soon come from America is unsettling, she says. "It hasn't happened yet, but I would find it hard to sign up for seven years for a series. It would be very tricky. I would have to take everyone. I don't really sleep if I am not with my husband, and seven years is a long time not to sleep."

For now, British television audiences can look out for Colman in a new series of Jimmy McGovern's The Accused, in which she stars with Anne Marie Duff.

"I always want to work. I have got a huge mortgage and I am the only earner at the moment, so I need to work too. It took me a good week or so to calm down over Christmas. Now I have completely relaxed, so I am a bit daunted by the rehearsals tomorrow. I've been used to having the boys come into bed and just lying there. But that all has to change again now."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/07/olivia-colman-iron-lady-interview

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