Secret Millionaire taken on terror ride by drugged up carjacker during Channel 4 show¿s filming
By Matt Blake
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A showbusiness tycoon was kidnapped by a drug-addled carjacker after travelling to his hometown to help the poor for TV’s The Secret Millionaire.
Theatre producer David King, worth an estimated £20 million, had returned to Leeds, West Yorkshire, to share his wealth with good causes for the Channel 4 show.
But as he waited in the passenger seat of a VW Golf for a crewmember to take him home after a charity junket, a wild-eyed junkie leapt into the driver’s seat and sped off.
Terror: David King, seen filming The Secret Millionaire in Leeds, was subject to a carjacking while in his home town
‘What was happening didn’t quite register at the time, but I soon realised the guy was high on drugs and reeked of booze, and I was being hijacked,’ said Mr King.
As the pair embarked on a high-speed terror tour of the city’s centre, Mr King – the man behind the smash hit ‘Spirit of the Dance’ show – pleaded with the thief to let him go.
‘Shut up or I’ll kill you,’ was the man’s only slurred response.
They swerved in and out of traffic, narrowly missing pedestrians, before the driver slammed the brakes to avoid a head-on crash with another car, providing Mr King with his chance to leap out.
Mr King added: ‘I was petrified. The guy was smashed out of his brains and had just screeched off the car park at 60 miles an hour, nearly hitting the television crew.
Big time: David King, centre, has theatres in the US and claims to be the biggest employer of dancers in Europe
Back in his old neighbourhood: Mr King poses next to a graffiti-covered wall while he went undercover in the show and he poses in his office, right
‘I was pleading with him to let me out. All I could think was that I had to get out of the car. I shouted repeatedly let me out let me out. He screamed back ‘shut up or I will kill you.’
The petrified 56-year-old managed to escape when the carjacker slammed on the brakes to avoid a head-on smash. ‘I threw open the door and flung myself out,’ he said.
West Yorkshire Police said the car was found shortly after the incident. No-one had been arrested and inquiries were ongoing.
The terrifying incident features in Monday’s show at 9pm.
The Secret Millionaire is a reality television show in which wealthy business figures and philanthropists go undercover in impoverished communities to find out about their problems and to meet the people working to improve conditions.
At the end of each episode, the millionaire reveals his or her background and presents worthy community projects with cheques for tens of thousands of pounds.
Mr King has theatres in the US and claims to be the biggest employer of dancers in Europe. He is the man behind Spirit of the Dance, an acclaimed musical that has been running since 1996.
He used it to capitalise on the huge demand for Irish dancing productions in the wake of Michael Flatley’s Riverdance, which did not tour small provinicial theatres. He was single-handedly responsible for getting it off the ground, raising the start-up funds, writing and producing what was to be a huge commerical success.
In the safety of the dance studio: As the pair embarked on a high-speed terror tour of the city’s centre, Mr King – the man behind the smash hit ‘Spirit of the Dance’ show – pleaded with the thief to let him go
David and his girls: The multi-millionaire with some of his dancers
He swapped the high life for a terraced house in Beeston, one of Leeds’ most deprived suburbs, while he filmed the show.
Mr King’s carjacking ordeal took place just before 11pm on November 9 last year, a West Yorkshire Police spokesman said.
The car was taken on Moor Road in Hunslet, Leeds. The VW Golf was found abandoned around half-a-mile away in Hillidge Road. It is thought the incident
lasted less than five minutes.
Luxury lifestyle: Mr King with a £200,000 high-power Bentley car
Back to roots: Mr King swapped the high life for a terraced house in Beeston, one of Leeds’ most deprived suburbs, while he filmed the show
The spokesman said: ‘Shortly before 11pm on 9th November, 2011, police were called to reports of a car theft from a premises on Moor Road, Hunslet, Leeds.
‘A man was sat in the passenger seat as the suspect made off in the vehicle but was able to get out a short time later.
‘The car was subsequently recovered from Hillidge Road, Hunslet soon after the incident.’
The male suspect was described as drunk at the time, in his mid 30s, around 6ft to 6ft 2ins tall, of slim/athletic build with blondish shaven hair.
Anyone recognising the man or anyone with information is asked to contact Holbeck CID via: 101 or call Crimestoppers, anonymously and in confidence.
Categories: News Tags: carjacker, Channel, drugged, during, Filming, Millionaire, Ride, Secret, shows, Taken, terror
WWII airbrushed from European history, an £18m visitor centre, and a TV propaganda channel in 22 languages: As Spain teeters on the brink, eurocrats in the Brussels bubble are spending as never before
By James Slack
|
One thing that symbolises the European elite’s sense of delusion as they cling to the dream of an unviable single currency is the grandiose decision to build a House Of European History.
At a cost of £44 million, eurocrats have invested in this project, which is intended to promote ‘an awareness of European identity’.
There is one problem, though. The governments of the EU countries are unable to agree over fundamental aspects of the showcase museum in Brussels.
Delusion: As the eurozone nears collapse, the European Parliament in Brussels (pictured) is embarking on a plan to build a House of European History
They have been arguing, for example, over diverging interpretations of events such as World War II — which EU enthusiasts risibly call the ‘European Civil War’.
Farcically, it’s been decided to omit any exhibit on which agreement cannot be reached.
And because of their differing views about World War II, the museum will begin with an EU ‘year zero’ of 1946.
Martin Callanan, the European Conservatives’ group leader in Brussels, has highlighted the madness of such a narcissistic project — particularly when Europe is in a deep economic crisis.
‘The European Parliament should not be in the business of running museums,’ he says. ‘Even in good times, the money would be a waste, but during these hard times it is scandalous.
Disaster
‘Even if we put the exorbitant cost to one side, differing perspectives of European history mean the museum’s content must be confined to post-World War II.
‘It is hard to see how this will be an objective history museum, rather than a centre for propaganda about the EU.’
And Belgian centre-right MEP Derk Jan Eppink has said: ‘No one wants to be involved in this when people can’t even agree what happened in the last war. It is self-aggrandisement at the expense of taxpayers.’
Crisis? What crisis? MEPs seem barely to have noticed the chaos unfolding in Greece
But then this is just another example of the out-of-control juggernaut of mis-spending of British taxpayers’ money that is happening in Brussels.
Eurocrats continue to pour endless amounts of taxpayers’ money into propping up the collapsing political EU ‘project’.
On a visit to Brussels in recent days, I was shocked to see just how detached from the real world they are, even as disaster unfolds across the Continent.
Ignored: There is no mention of the billions of euros that the European Central Bank (pictured) has poured into propping up the single currency
I heard barely a mention in the European Parliament of the Greek sovereign debt crisis.
There were no debates about the 386 billion euros committed — so far — to save Greece, Ireland and Portugal from bankruptcy or of ways to prevent the debt contagion spreading to Spain, as has happened in the past few days.
And there was no discussion of the devastating official figures that show one in ten in the eurozone is unemployed.
Detached: What about the catastrophe of Spain’s 50% youth unemployment, which is causing social tensions to boil over?
In some countries, youth unemployment is close to a catastrophic 50 per cent and experts largely agree the eurozone has slipped back into the throttling grip of recession.
Yesterday, the International Monetary Fund warned for the first time that Europe’s debt crisis could trigger a break-up of the eurozone.
Yet the European Parliament sails along like a partying cruise liner, utterly oblivious to the disasters ahead.
Warning: The International Monetary Fund, whose president is Christine Lagarde (pictured) has said that Europe’s debt problem could cause the fragmentation of the eurozone
In Brussels, the foyers are packed with art exhibitions. In the chamber, debates take place on enlarging the EU to take in still more member states.
While the European dream of a strong single currency evaporates, the only thing that seems to concern MEPs is their own self-importance.
The bars and restaurants surrounding the European Parliament are heaving. Money and drink flow freely. Little wonder.
Staff working for the EU pay tax at a rate of 21 per cent (though our MEPs pay British tax rates, so as not to benefit from this racket).
In stark contrast, the waiters who serve trays full of Belgian beer, steak and frites pay 40 per cent tax.
As one veteran remarked of life in the Brussels bubble: ‘There is no recession here.’
Indeed. But what there is — in spades — is vanity.
Behind the main European Parliament complex, I was directed to a newly opened 65,000 sq ft visitor centre called the ‘Parliamentarium,’ which cost nearly £18 million (the original estimate for it was £14 million).
It is a shrine to excess, packed with expensive technology and featuring welcome messages from every MEP.
It celebrates the creation of the EU with barely a nod to the crisis raging all around. France’s recent history is marked by a picture of the Tour de France, and Germany’s by the famous Berlin address by Barack Obama in 2008.
Interestingly, the image used to represent Britain (which, of course, is not a member of the euro) is much less positive.
We get pictures of the bombings in London in July 2005 and of staff packing boxes at the London arm of Lehman Brothers after its collapse.
Bias? The new £18m ‘Parliamentarium’ visitor centre represents France with a picture of the Tour de France (above), but shows victims of the 2008 banking collapse for Britain (below)
This reflects the jaundiced French view that it’s the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model that is to blame for all the world’s ills.
Sadly, such vanity projects as the House Of European History are visible everywhere — regardless of the crippling debts of individual member states.
Overall, the European Parliament costs £1.69 billion a year to run — an increase of 18 per cent since 2009.
It rents, leases or owns 63 buildings, double the number a decade ago.
Tory MEP Geoffrey Van Orden, who heads the New Direction think-tank, says the main reason for the spiralling cost has been the massive increase in Parliament’s bureaucracy.
Grotesque
Since the enlargement of the EU in 2004 (which increased the number of member states from 15 to 25), staff levels have grown from 3,946 to 6,245 — even though there are only four more MEPs than in 2004.
More than 1,000 European Parliament officials earn more than the MEPs — who themselves are very well paid.
By comparison, just 83 staff members of the British House of Commons are paid more than our MPs.
Charade: The European Parliament regularly relocates to a duplicate building in Strasbourg – at vast expense – for no other reason than to placate the French
Meanwhile, it has emerged that a TV propaganda channel for the European Parliament, which has only 830 viewers a day, costs £7 million a year to run — largely because most of the shows telecast are translated into 22 languages — including Gaelic, which is spoken by just 80,000 people.
During my visit, it emerged that the head of the EU’s environment agency — a British scientist — has been using public funds for staff training in the Caribbean and Mediterranean.
Jacqueline McGlade, a marine biologist, also spent £250,000 to decorate its Copenhagen-based headquarters with plants.
Eurocrats are so used to such grotesque expenditure of other people’s money that barely an eyebrow was raised.
Worse, the eurocrats fail to see that they are doing anything wrong.
Every year, £180 million is squandered on dragging the entire eurocracy to France for a handful of sessions in the Strasbourg Parliament building.
Squandered: The moves to Strasbourg (pictured) cost £180m a year
This happens for no other reason than to placate the French — whose economy benefits from the millions spent in hotels, bars and restaurants by the travelling EU circus.
In a laudable move, Tory MEP Ashley Fox fought to stop the European Parliament travelling to Strasbourg for a single month — a saving to Europe’s taxpayers of an estimated £15 million.
Privilege
Yet the plan is being challenged in the European Court of Justice — yet another expensive EU institution.
No one is betting against the court ruling in favour of France, and of the waste continuing unchecked.
Of course, the European Parliament is responsible for only a fraction of the EU’s profligacy.
Cut back! David Cameron has insisted that Britain will not contribute any more to the EU’s increased budget
The EU’s entire budget is an obscene £120 billion — with Britain making a net contribution (money we dole out, but do not get back in grants or our historic rebate) of £6.12 billion.
That is £233 for every household in the UK.
Indeed, as research by the MEP Richard Ashworth shows, only Germany pays more, in net terms, for the privilege of being a member of probably the most spendthrift club on earth.
Yet the Brussels establishment still does not recognise the need for the kind of efficiencies being implemented at home by their member states.
Outrageously, the Commission’s budget committee has just demanded an increase in the EU budget of 5 per cent a year for the next seven years.
David Cameron insists that Britain will not pay. But we have heard tough talk over budgets from him before, only for him to cave in, as he did last year over the same issue when he agreed to a 2.9 per cent increase in the budget.
If he finds himself wobbling in negotiations, he should think of the unforgivable act of vanity that is the new House Of European History.
If that doesn’t convince him to stand his ground, then nothing will.
The EU is living in a state of near criminal delusion and waste. History will surely record that its bureaucrats fiddled while the euro dream burned.
Categories: News Tags: £18m, Airbrushed, before, brink, Brussels, Bubble, centre, Channel, eurocrats, European, from, History, Languages, Never, propaganda, Spain, spending, teeters, visitor, WWII
Mary Portas blasted for ‘child labour’ sketch on Channel 4′s Mash Up
By Gavin Allen
Last updated at 10:33 AM on 4th January 2012
Retail guru Mary Portas has provoked outrage after appearing in a comedy sketch in which she was seen running a sweat shop of sobbing Asian children
The sketch, screened on Channel 4, showed a film crew apparently stumbling across the room while filming in Portas’ home.
In the room young Asian actors were shown tearfully working at sewing machines, purportedly grafting on her ‘Queen of Shops’ clothing collection.
Sweat shop: Mary Portas has been slammed for taking part in a comedy sketch depicting a child labour camp at her house
In the sketch, cameras accidentally stumble across the sweat shop, with Portas claiming the children are her family, while her servant attempts to hide them
Portas, a government adviser on the British high street, then attempted to jokingly cover up the ‘discovery’ claiming the children were members of her family.
She was seen berating her assistant for letting cameras in and said: ‘You know my, err, my family don’t like to feature on camera.’
The satirical sketch came as part of Channel 4’s ‘Mash Up’ night, where Portas took a turn presenting links between shows on Monday night.
Channel 4 has since received numerous complaints about the sketch.
And viewers have taken to Twitter to express their outrage, branding it in ‘shockingly bad taste.’ Louise Fernley wrote: ‘Shocked that Mary Portas agreed to that child labour “joke” and producers let it go out.’
Matt Horwood said: ‘That Mary Portas scene in between the #C4mashup wasn’t funny, and was kind of extremely inappropriate. Eeek.’
Twitter outrage: People took to the social networking site during the show to criticise the sketch, with comments including that it was in ‘shockingly bad taste’
Watch me: How Portas used Twitter plugged her appearance on the programme
Another, known as Pablo K, said: ‘Channel 4 Mash Up making HILARIOUS jokes about child labour with over-exposed fashionista Mary Stinking Portas. #hahaFAIL.’
One user, named dorotheainrome, said: ‘WHAT THE ACTUAL *** MARY PORTAS AND CHANNEL 4? Child slavery really not funny at all. At all!’
Another, Isobel Jokl, said: ‘Really tasteful child labour joke there Mary Portas. Nice.’
One user, calling himself toyboxstudio, said: ‘Is that Mary Portas segue with the kids sewing a bit, well, shockingly bad taste?’
Charlotte Long said: ‘What are those little children doing for Mary portas?!Not really funny…. #racist #childlabour … #C4MashUp’
Rachael Swanson said: ‘#C4 are gonna get in so much trouble for that clip with Mary Portas. Always one to push the boundaries!’
In fashion: Portas was appointed as a special adviser on retail by David Cameron
A spokesman for Channel 4 confirmed they had received 11 complaints about the sketch so far.
He said: ‘This was a tongue in cheek sketch as part of a comedy evening.’
Portas, who throughout the sketches was accompanied by a manservant named Marcello, was one of two celebrity hosts for the night with illusionist Derren brown also taking part in several sketches.
In other sketches Portas was seen giving clothes advice to David Cameron on a ‘Downing Street Hotline’ in a room furnished with a multi-coloured Andy Warhol-style portait of herself, She was also depicted drinking cocktails surrounded by manequins and holding a lapdog, all of which were wearing wigs matching her distinctive red haircut.
The controversial clip comes after Channel 4 announced plans for Portas to front a new show aimed at convincing shoppers to buy British-made clothes, to boost the economy and avoid unethical exploitation of foreign workers.
The show, called ‘Mary’s Bottom Line’ is due to be screened later this year.
Portas was recently commissioned by the government to conduct an independent review into the ‘Future of the High Street’.
As part of this, she came up with recommendations aimed at saving UK town centres by rejuvenating shops and markets.
Miss Portas called for a change in planning rules to support town-centre development ahead of new malls.
She said planning permission for all large out-of-town shopping developments should be referred to ministers for scrutiny and approval.
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