Miranda Hart has said “getting married in mid-life is a full injection of joy and fun”, after revealing she’s tied the knot at the age of 51.

The comedian and actreess has married a man she met during the pandemic.

“It’s the best!” she said. “He’s my best friend, we have the best fun… The fact that I could meet somebody – it’s not a rom-com story but it’s hope, and that’s why I think, whatever situation you’re in, there’s always hope that things really do change.”

She discusses the relationship in her new book, and also opens up about her struggle with chronic fatigue after being diagnosed with Lyme disease.

The star, who is best known for her BBC sitcom Miranda, told the BBC it had been a “tough few years”, but she was “thrilled” by her marriage, and was “really keen to get back to some silliness”.

“It’s so nice to be back in the television, I feel very excited to be here,” she told The One Show.

“Because once you’ve been bed and housebound with a fatigue-based chronic illness that takes a long time to be diagnosed – which sadly I know a lot of people will know – you miss life a lot. So I’m thrilled to be sitting here.”

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection which can spread to humans via a tick bite.

The disease can be easily treated if detected and diagnosed early, but for a long time, the actor didn’t know what was causing her to feel unwell.

It often starts with a circular rash and can lead to flu-like symptoms, nerve pain and sometimes a droop (facial palsy) on one, or both, sides of the face.

For most people, symptoms are short-term and can be alleviated by a course of antibiotics, but a minority go on to suffer more long-term symptoms, including chronic tiredness and unexplained neurological issues.

The star said she found it incredibly hard being confined to her home for such a long period.

“Unless you’ve had fatigue [like that], you don’t understand what literally not getting off the floor is,” Hart told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“I was basically bed-bound – and housebound. There’d be times where I’d look at a glass of water, and think ‘I don’t know how to pick that up’.

“All anyone wants is to be heard, accepted, loved and seen… and when you’re not – particularly in a medical situation – it’s the worst.”

Part of why she’s written the book was to share her discovery of what helped her recovery, she said.

“I thought I need to research this whole wellness expertise and dialogue that’s out there, but I was at bed at home alone, the doctors didn’t know what to do with me and I couldn’t have a cold plunge or go on a yoga retreat.

“So I thought what are the universal truths? So I did years of research, when I felt able to, and in the book there are 10 keys, which I call my treasures, to living well.

“And they’ve really genuinely [helped]. I feel like despite the suffering it came from, that I’m living a life of joy and meaning and fulfilment in a way I never have before.

“I feel like I know who I honestly am, in a way that I never knew I needed to, which is just incredible.”

When she finally received her diagnosis, she was able to trace the condition back to her teenage years.

“Probably when I was about 14 or 15, I got a tick-borne illness… and that’s when my symptoms started,” she recalled.

“It was such a relief. I mean, being misunderstood and misjudged is one of the hardest things about these kind of conditions. For sure.”

The actress, who began her career performing at the Edinburgh Fringe in the early 2000s, remains best known for her portrayal of the unlucky-in-love and socially awkward Miranda from her self-titled TV sitcom which ran from 2009 until 2015 .

Having taken time out to rest and recover, and with her new husband by her side, Hart suggested she finally felt well enough to start taking on new projects.

“I’m really keen to get back to some silliness now, I miss the studio floor, I miss laughter.”

After appearing on The One Show, Hart said she found her fans’ delight at her marriage “really very touching”.

Posting a video on X, she said: “I’ve got my best friend to do life with and it’s wonderful, and I’m also utterly thrilled to be back in telly land and having a book out, so thanks so much for all your support.”

Hart ended the video high-fiving her husband – only his hand was visible in the clip – which she joked was an “exclusive”.

She hasn’t revealed his identity, and said she wouldn’t say how they met until the book is published because it is “a little bit of a twist”.

Her book, titled I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, is published on Thursday, 10 October.

You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player

So, Susannah, what problem are we mulling over today?

Can we solve our overfishing problem and sustainably satisfy the world’s hunger for fish? According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, or the FAO, in 2020 the International Trade of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products was worth around $150bn. But the FAO now classifies a third of the world’s fishery stocks as overfished, which means they’re being fished beyond sustainable levels.

So what can be done to combat overfishing? Firstly, fishing subsidies which incentivise overfishing are a huge problem. Now, these are subsidies from governments for things such as fuel, fishing gear, and new vessels. An academic study from 2019 estimated that these government payouts to the fishing industry totalled around $22.2bn.

There has been some progress in limiting subsidies, especially those that end up supporting unregulated fishing. In June 2022, the World Trade Organisation agreement on fishery subsidies was signed. The goal in mind is to prohibit subsidy support for illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, and limiting fishing of overfished stocks. But it’s only due to come into force when two-thirds of WTO members ratify it. That means that 110 countries have to ratify it. But as of the 1st of July of this year, only 78 countries have done so.

So what other measures could we be looking at? Firstly, we could be doing more to protect essential predator species. For example, it’s estimated by the WWF that one third of shark species face extinction. Predator species like sharks play a crucial role in the ocean ecosystem and food chain.

Next, to avoid bycatch, the FAO has suggested placing the top end of fishing nets two metres lower in the water. Now, this has been shown to effectively reduce the mortality of marine mammal bycatch by 98 per cent in places like the Indian Ocean. Finally, the growth of aquaculture, which is fish farmed in pens or ponds, could ease some of the pressure on wild stocks.

Today, more than 50 per cent of the fish that we eat is farmed. Of course, these measures that I’ve been speaking about come with their own challenges. If we take aquaculture, for example, critics say aquaculture’s practises for sourcing feed harm food security in poorer countries. That’s because it hoovers up small species of fish, which the local communities rely on for food in order to make fishmeal for the aquaculture farms.

Another huge challenge facing authorities is simply the sheer number of fishing boats in the world, many of which are unregulated. Now, according to the FAO, illegal or unregulated fishing accounts for some 20 per cent of what’s caught, or around 26mn tonnes of fish every year. Regulating fisheries has always been a highly political issue. But no matter how difficult the problem of overfishing is to solve, it cannot be ignored.

If there’s one thing that consistently worries the financial advice sector, it’s the looming capacity crunch.

The statistics are well known: a recent Investec survey found 49% of financial advisers and planners intended to retire within the next five years, while 35% aimed to retire by age 50. And this is only the latest in a long line of such findings.

So, why aren’t these numbers being replaced? Again, it’s a familiar story: in some cases, young people see financial advice as not relevant to them, as something “stuffy and old-fashioned”, in the words of the LIBF’s John Somerville.

These initiatives are a great starting point, but they should act as a spur for a much bigger push

Others may feel, incorrectly, that they lack the necessary skills. Or they are put off by the routes to qualification, seeing them as arduous and expensive. Or the advice firms themselves are reluctant to invest in new talent.

But the overwhelming problem is a lack of awareness. According to the CII’s Claire Bishop, “Often, it’s just not something that’s on the radar of people at school, university or college.” The same is true for careers advisers.

This is despite the opportunities financial advice offers in terms of role diversity, opportunity, location, salary and self-employment. It is a sector that suits a wide range of talent and abilities; as Bishop puts it: “There’s an assumption that it’s all about maths. And it’s not. It’s about helping people and understanding people.”

All of the schemes agree that collaboration is vital

And, while no one would describe it as an easy profession, research last year by Dynamic Planner revealed that nine in 10 advisers under 30 would recommend financial advice as a career. There aren’t many other professions that could make that claim.

So, it’s time the sector pulled together and did more to promote itself. If financial advice is so rewarding, why don’t more people know about it? And, if everyone in the profession is agreed that we have a problem, why not collaborate more on the solutions?

Fortunately, there are plenty of initiatives out there that are doing just that. This month’s cover feature highlights four of them: CII’s virtual work-experience programme with Springpod; the New Talent Alliance; The Verve Foundation’s ‘We Are Change’ initiative; and Future Financial Adviser.

In some cases, young people see financial advice as not relevant to them, as something stuffy and old-fashioned

All of these are promoting opportunities to young people and assisting them on their journey. All of them are helping to push financial advice into the spotlight. And all of them agree that collaboration is vital.

However, we need to do more. These initiatives are a great starting point, but they should act as a spur for a much bigger push.

So, if you know of a project that is addressing the adviser gap, or you have any thoughts that aren’t addressed in our feature, we’d love to hear from you!

Tom Browne is editor of Money Marketing. Contact him at: tom.browne@moneymarketing.co.uk

This article featured in the October 2024 edition of Money Marketing. 

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It’s no secret that Gulf autocrats control serious cheddar. A (paywalled) report out this month attempts to estimate quite how much.

Totting up the available numbers, Global SWF reckon the Gulf Cooperation Council’s ruling families control around $6.8 trillion of assets. That’s two whole Apples! Click through the chart below to see how this breaks down by state, category and fund:

What do these funds even do with $6.8 trillion? It turns out, at least four things.

First, they diversify their economies beyond the expected life of the reservoir of hydrocarbons upon which the region floats.

Second, they project soft power internationally. Think football, golf, media, universities, maybe even the capture of international professional elites through butlering gigs.

Third, buy garish bling and stroke rulers’ giant egos.

Lastly, they own pretty much everything in touching distance. According to the report, Gulf SWFs own every one of their national champions across every major industry. State capitalism at its most obvious (high-res here):

But it’s not just champions. They also own most of all stocks listed in GCC.

The report’s authors combed through the share registers of each of the 877 companies listed in the region and found that 68 per cent of the Abu Dhabi market cap is owned by local SWFs and royal family offices. In Saudi, a full 77 per cent of the market is owned by PIF and the state. For the GCC overall, 70 per cent of market capitalisation is ultimately state-owned.

Admittedly, much of this is owing to the outsized prominence of the Saudi market in the region, and the outsized prominence of the almost wholly state-owned Aramco. But still:

Hang on, is this a chance for another marimekko moment?!

Despite owning so much of their listed markets, GCC authorities have still made some efforts to get outsiders interested in their stocks. These efforts have had mixed results.

Norway’s $1.7 trillion mega-SWF NBIM divested all its Saudi stocks in 2021. And Norway’s largest domestic pension fund KLP dumped GCC stocks on human rights concerns in 2023. Sweden’s giant pension fund AP7 blacklisted Saudi Aramco — which makes up around a quarter of the region’s market cap — at the start of the year, although this didn’t stop Saudi from selling $11.2bn of stock over the summer, albeit at the bottom end of the range and at a 6 per cent discount to the market. And despite its phenomenal share price growth, IHC (which constitutes around a third of Abu Dhabi’s ADX exchange market cap) mostly just perplexes international investors.

But passive investors? They’re much more enthused. Or, at least, they’ve found their money poured into the region following choices made by the index providers to whom they’ve outsourced investment decision-making. MSCI’s decision to include UAE and Qatar (in 2014), Saudi (in 2019), and Kuwait (in 2020) to its indices has meant anyone committing cash to a MSCI EM or MSCI ACWI tracker fund is buying stocks in the region.

The BIS noted that MSCI and FTSE’s admission of Saudi stocks to their indices in 2019 coincided with foreign equity flows into the country that exceeded those heading to India and China. And MSCI themselves calculate that foreign investment in Saudi stocks has more than quadrupled from $23.5bn to $97.5bn since their index inclusion decision was made.

Somewhat unusually, the study includes Royal Private Offices — a category of state-controlled assets we haven’t seen analysed before. These account for a cool $0.5tn, or about half a Berkshire Hathaway, which sounds maybe less impressive. Almost $350bnof these assets are run for the UAE’s ruling Al Nahyan family alone. But as the authors note:

This group of entities, led by Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group and all its subsidiaries, is even more opaque than SWFs … links to the royal families can make the boundaries between SWFs and RPOs blurry at times.

Given that GCC states are overwhelmingly absolute monarchies, it’s probably not worth getting too hung up over the distinction.