The artist Sir Howard Hodgkin had his studio in an old dairy close to the British Museum in London. Instead of the rattling of milk bottles, there was a contemplative silence in which his unfinished canvases faced the wall, some of them for years on end. They were that rare commodity, works of modern art that the public actually liked.

Lucian Freud planted his easel on bare floorboards, surrounded by piles of soiled rags and with gouts of paint splashed up the skirting board. For him, “working from home” was like being in a field hospital at the Battle of Trafalgar. By contrast, I remember the atelier of Gilbert & George, the odd couple of contemporary British art, in Whitechapel as a spotless gun-metal tank, jet-washed by an assistant in trawlerman’s waders. It was like a cross between a quality-assured abattoir and a Berlin techno club.

As a journalist, I’ve been fortunate enough to pop my head around the door of a few studios, trying to answer the big question about artists: how does the magic happen? Like a Sunday painter, I was merely dabbling with my researches.

By contrast, Martin Gayford, long-serving critic and art historian, is a trusted insider and a favoured guest of the most celebrated talents in the UK and beyond. If anyone knows what makes them tick, it ought to be this latter-day Vasari. Freud painted his portrait, “Man with a Blue Scarf”, which was also the title of a very good book that Gayford wrote about the experience. He has also collaborated in print with David Hockney. Now he has distilled a lifetime of studying pictures and talking to painters into a “How to” book.

Van Gogh wrote to his brother in 1884 about the ‘paralysing stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can’t do anything’

On second thoughts, “distilled” might not be quite the right word, with its suggestion of long-trickled perfectibility. All that patient looking and listening only gets you so far, it turns out. True, Gayford can tell us plenty about the origins of painting and pigments. In How Painting Happens, he devotes pages to synaesthesia, the syndrome of experiencing colour in terms of sound, and vice versa. We learn about the influence of photography on painters, and of painters on other painters.

But the author is honest enough to admit that the real alchemy remains tantalisingly out of reach. Professional gallery-goers think they can tell at a glance which paintings are worth their consideration, he says, but “critics and curators . . . including me, everybody, regularly get these judgments completely wrong.”

So how does painting happen? For Freud, the spur to creativity was settling his terrifying gambling debts. That is, until his prices became so astronomical that he simply couldn’t lose enough on the horses to make a new picture a financial necessity. Hodgkin was trying to capture his fleeting emotions in paint, though he would rather have been doing almost anything else. “I hate the act of painting,” he claimed. “People have said so often, ‘Aren’t you lucky to be able to do this for a living!’ And I say, ‘No, thank you, I’m not lucky.’ Having to go through the horrors of painting a picture is not something I look forward to, ever.”

At times, Gayford’s account reads more like a “How not to” handbook. Tracey Emin began work on what she imagined would be a “love scene”, only to find a Turneresque seascape demanding to escape from her brushstrokes instead (“The Ship”, 2019). Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1884 about the “paralysing stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can’t do anything”. Even Titian propped his half-finished pictures against the walls. Like Hodgkin, he was wondering what to do with them.

This is not the book for cynics and readers who suspect that how painting happens is that dealers, artists and collectors get together in a cosy relationship — one where multiple shares are sometimes sold in a single artwork and the goods are “flipped” for quick and profitable resale. In truth, that sort of thing has always gone on, one way or another. Without hard-faced but loaded patrons, we might never have had masterpieces by Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt. 

Stimulating and sumptuously illustrated, How Painting Happens is really two books in one, a double-sided canvas. The “recto”, as art world types would dub the “front” side, depicts humankind’s steady upward progress, from scratches on a cave wall to the glorious, inexhaustible possibilities of paint and beyond.

Painting matters, Gayford argues, because it “communicates directly across time, without using words”. A successful picture creates its own world, he says. Mark Rothko’s colour field paintings made people burst into tears. The artist himself was unfazed; in fact, he would have been disappointed if they didn’t. They were having a religious experience, he said. For Rothko, a painting had to have meaning: “There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.”

The other side of Gayford’s study, the “verso”, is a less flattering but sympathetic portrait of artists failing, then failing better; of the sublime and the ridiculous; of blood, sweat and turpentine.

The influential New York critic Clement Greenberg took a more prosaic view than Rothko. “Mark was a decent guy . . . but he was so pompous! . . . All that ‘sublime’ crap! . . . People who talk about meaning! I don’t give a damn about meaning,” he told Gayford. “When it comes to about-ness, if you are painting from nature, you are not making it about a tree or clouds, you are making it as good as you can.”

How Painting Happens (and why it matters) by Martin Gayford Thames & Hudson £35/$45, 384 pages

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Money Marketing’s Weekly Must-Reads: Top 10 Stories

Key highlights include the Chancellor ‘likely to target’ £48bn pension tax relief in the Budget and the PFS-CII relationship being ‘blown wide open’ after the latest developments. Read more below:



Chancellor ‘likely to set sight on’ £48bn pension tax relief in Budget

PFS and CII relationship ‘blown wide open’ after latest saga

Tensions between the Personal Finance Society (PFS) and its parent body, the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), have reignited after the CII appointed four of its executives, including CEO Matthew Hill, to the PFS board on 1 October.

This follows the controversial “Christmas coup” in December 2022, when the CII imposed directors on the PFS board due to governance issues. The move has drawn criticism from the campaign group OurPFS, which fears this could define the future of the PFS.

True Potential CEO Daniel Harrison steps down after seven years

True Potential CEO Daniel Harrison is stepping down after seven years in the role, following a planned transition since the firm’s partnership with private equity firm Cinven in 2021.

Harrison announced his departure to staff at the firm’s annual conference on 3 October. Co-founding True Potential 17 years ago, Harrison played a pivotal role in the firm’s growth to over 500,000 clients and £31.4bn in assets.

He expressed confidence in the executive team to lead the business forward post-departure.

FCA fines Starling Bank £29m for financial crime failings

The FCA has fined Starling Bank £29m for serious failings in its financial sanctions screening and anti-money laundering framework.

Despite agreeing to restrict opening new high-risk accounts in 2021, the bank opened over 54,000 such accounts between September 2021 and November 2023. An internal review revealed Starling’s automated screening system only checked a fraction of those on the sanctions list.

The FCA criticised the bank’s lax controls, but Starling has since implemented measures to improve its financial crime controls.

Abrdn Adviser hires chief technology and product officer

Abrdn Adviser has appointed Derek Smith as its new chief technology and product officer, starting in November.

Smith, previously CTO at Morningstar Wealth, will lead the integration of technology and product teams, driving innovation and scalability at Abrdn Adviser. CEO Noel Butwell highlighted Smith’s experience in delivering market-leading solutions during a time of digital transformation.

Smith joins amid a leadership expansion, following the recent hires of Verona Kenny as chief distribution officer and Louise Williams as CFO, as Abrdn Adviser focuses on growth and platform upgrades.

FCA secures first conviction for crypto ATM operation

The FCA has secured its first conviction for illegal crypto ATM operation in the UK. Olumide Osunkoya, 45, pleaded guilty to operating unauthorised crypto ATMs, using false documents and possession of criminal property.

Between December 2021 and September 2023, Osunkoya’s network of at least 11 crypto ATMs processed over £2.6m in transactions without conducting due diligence or source of funds checks. His machines, located in convenience stores, were used by those likely involved in money laundering or tax evasion.

Sentencing will take place at Southwark Crown Court.

Royal London chair Parry resigns

Kevin Carr: It’s almost as if we want to put people off…

Standard Life launches free pension-finding tool

Standard Life has launched a free pension-finding tool in partnership with Raindrop to help UK residents locate their missing pensions.

Research revealed that 19% of individuals with multiple pensions have lost track of at least one. Despite the advantages of consolidating pensions, 73% of people with multiple workplace pensions have not done so, often due to uncertainty or difficulty in the process.

Users can trace lost pensions by providing their former employer’s name and employment period, streamlining the search and aiding retirement planning.

Hang Seng ‘performed better’ during 2024 than S&P 500

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Fifa’s rules on the transfers of professional footballers break EU rules on free movement, Brussels’ top court has said, in a verdict that could disrupt the European game’s system of player sales between clubs.

The European Court of Justice’s decision comes after Lassana Diarra, a former French international player, challenged the rules in a 10-year dispute with his former club Lokomotiv Moscow. Diarra claimed his search for a new club was impeded by the rules of Fifa, football’s governing body.

The Diarra ruling is the latest in a string of ECJ judgments that have challenged the legal status quo in sport and could open the door to major changes in the multibillion-dollar transfer market that underpins professional football’s economic model, analysts said.

“The judgment has broad implications for the transfer system but also for Fifa’s governance and ability to regulate football,” said Alfonso Lamadrid, a partner at Garrigues Brussels and expert in competition law. “It’s another example of the EU courts being ready to control Fifa’s regulatory over-reach and lack of good governance.”

In 2014, Diarra left Lokomotiv Moscow before the end of his contract, leading the Russian club to file a complaint with Fifa for contract breach. After Fifa ordered Diarra to pay €10mn in damages to Lokomotiv, the former Chelsea, Arsenal and Real Madrid player sued Fifa and the Belgian FA for blocking his transfer to Charleroi.

Citing the financial, legal and sporting risks for players, the court said on Friday: “The rules in question are such as to impede the free movement of professional footballers wishing to develop their activity by going to work for a new club.”

Diarra’s lawyers said the ECJ ruling was a “total victory” for their client, and “paves the way for a modernisation of governance” in football, “in particular through collective bargaining between employees and employers”. 

His legal team was led by Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer who successful challenged Fifa rules in 1995 on behalf of Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman. That ECJ decision allowed players to move freely between clubs at the end of their contracts. Dupont also took on Uefa and Fifa over their handling of the breakaway European Super League. 

Yasin Patel, sports barrister at London-based Church Court Chambers, said the latest ruling could have “far-reaching consequences for the transfer system”.

“Players may now be able to move more freely to other clubs by breaking with a contract as opposed to being tied to the club and contract. In addition, buying clubs may not have to pay compensation or claims,” he said.

Global players’ union Fifpro welcomed the ruling. In a statement on X it said: “The ECJ has just handed down a major ruling on the regulation of the labour market in football . . . which will change the landscape of professional football.”

The latest ruling comes as football regulators and league operators move to tighten spending restrictions on clubs, which players’ unions have warned could in effect create a salary cap at certain levels of the game. 

Fifa said it was “satisfied that the legality of key principles of the transfer system have been reconfirmed in today’s ruling. The ruling only puts in question two paragraphs of two articles of the Ffifa Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, which the national court is now invited to consider.

“Fifa will analyse the decision in co-ordination with other stakeholders before commenting further.”

In July, Fifpro and European Leagues also joined forces to make a formal complaint over footballers’ welfare, ramping up pressure on Fifa over the busy calendar of matches. They said: “Fifa’s decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body, and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.”

At the heart of that debate is Fifa’s move to boost the Club World Cup from seven teams to 32 at the tournament in the US in 2025.

NATIONWIDE is cutting interest rates on a host of its savings accounts for the first time in four years.

The building society is slashing rates across the board following the Bank of England‘s (BoE) decision to drop base rate from 5.25% to 5%.

1

Base rate is the rate charged to high street banks which is then reflected in mortgage and savings rates.

Nationwide, which serves around 17million customers, says it will lower rates by between 0.10 to 0.20 percentage points from November 1.

It is the first time the building society has cut rates on its savings accounts since 2020, when the BoE last dropped interest rates.

Rates will fall on regular savings accounts, children’s accounts, limited access and easy access savings accounts.

Five of Nationwide’s 24 savings accounts won’t see any change in interest.

Its Continue to Save regular savings account will fall from 2.50% to 2.30% at the start of next month.

Meanwhile, its 1-year Triple Access Online Saver 15 will fall from 4.25% to 4.10%.

Its Instant Access Saver 10 account will be cut from 2.40% to 2.20% – a 0.20 percentage points drop.

Tom Riley, Nationwide’s director of retail products, said: “We have worked hard to limit the impact of the recent rate cut on our savers and have taken the decision to not reduce rates on those accounts encouraging a regular savings habit.

“Following these changes, our savings range will remain competitive, and we’ll continue to give savers every reason to put their money with Nationwide.”

The full list of Nationwide’s savings accounts and whether their rates are being cut is in our table below.

The announcement from Nationwide comes as a number of other banks cut rates on savings accounts.

Santander recently slashed the rate on its easy-access savings account from 5.2% to 4%.

Chase, CHIP and The Co-operative Bank have also cut rates since the BoE’s decision to lower base rate to 5% in August.

Sarah Coles, personal finance expert from Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “It’s not a big surprise to see Nationwide cut rates, because we’ve seen them fall across the savings market as a whole.

“It remains relatively competitive for a high street bank, which is vital for those people who absolutely need to bank in a branch.

“Having said that, it leaves plenty of accounts looking distinctly lacklustre.”

Should you switch?

If you’re a Nationwide customer with one of the affected savings accounts, you might be considering switching to another bank.

According to Moneyfacts, the best easy access account is currently with Ulster Bank which is offering a 5.20% interest rate, although you have to put in a minimum of £5,000.

Customers could try Cahoot’s 5% savings account which you can start adding to with just £1.

The best regular savings account is with Principality Building Society, which is offering 8% interest.

Meanwhile, the most competitive Children’s account is with Saffron Building Society which is 5.55%.

Sarah suggested for those looking to get a better limited access account Coventry BS’ Triple Access Saver is offering 4.83%

She suggested looking at challenger instead of major banks to get some of the best rates on other accounts too.

“You’ll get a far better rate by looking beyond the high street, and considering online bank accounts or online cash savings platforms.

“You can track down the best performers using a price comparison site.

“However, if you know this isn’t something you’ll have the energy for on a regular basis, you can use an online cash savings platform, like Raisin or Active Savings.

“These have competitive rates from a large number of banks, and let you switch between different accounts from different banks without having to complete fiddly paperwork, and with just a handful of clicks of the mouse.”

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

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Argentina’s airports have been repeatedly plunged into chaos as a clash escalates between libertarian President Javier Milei and workers at the country’s flag carrier, Aerolíneas Argentinas.

In the first major confrontation between Milei’s free market reform drive and Argentina’s powerful unions, strikes are threatening travel around the 1mn-square-mile country, as the start of the nation’s peak holiday season looms in December.

Labour unions representing employees at state-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas, which controls two-thirds of the domestic market, are demanding wage increases to compensate for the country’s triple-digit inflation. In recent months they have staged a series of strikes; they say the government has refused dialogue.

“We have two extreme, completely ideologically opposed sides fighting, and trapped in between we have a company and thousands of passengers,” said one Argentine airline executive. “Anything could happen.”

Stranded luggage and queues of frustrated passengers filled Buenos Aires’ city airport during the largest strike in mid-September, which cancelled all Aerolíneas flights for 24 hours. It affected 37,000 passengers and cost $2.5mn, according to the company.

“It’s ridiculous . . . I’ve been waiting a year to see [Patagonian glacier] Perito Moreno and now I don’t think I’ll be able to,” a Spanish tourist complained to broadcaster TN. “I’m left with a bad image of how the country handles these things.”

Milei, a fierce opponent of the labour unions, has hit back with a hardline response. His administration has fired several pilots who took part in strikes and has tried to declare air travel an essential service as a means of banning strikes altogether, though the courts prevented this from taking effect. The government has also begun talks with private companies about ceding some Aerolíneas routes.

Milei on Tuesday issued a decree declaring the company “subject to privatisation” in order to speed up an effort to sell the group, which will require congressional approval.

“This company has cost the state billions of dollars, [which] have come out of the pockets of all Argentines, including many who have never stepped foot on a plane,” transport secretary Franco Mogetta told the Financial Times. “We insist it must be privatised.”

The clash is the most disruptive labour conflict so far for Milei, who won last year’s election on a pledge to cut public spending, deregulate the economy and sell public companies.

Union bosses in other transport sectors are considering a general strike next month, which could cause much of the country to grind to a halt. Further air travel disruption is coming, said Juan Pablo Mazzieri, spokesperson for the association of airline pilots, which represents all of Aerolíneas’ more than 1,000 pilots. 

“We heard unanimous support for deepening the conflict at an assembly of 420 pilots [in late September],” he said. “Deepening the conflict means more strike days, more strike hours and other forms of direct action that we will announce soon.”

Aerolíneas Argentinas is an ideological flashpoint for Peronism, Argentina’s powerful left-leaning opposition movement, whose founder, former president Juan Domingo Perón, started the company in 1950.

It was sold off in 1989 amid a wave of privatisations under rightwing president Carlos Saúl Menem, but renationalised under leftwing Peronist president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2008 when it was it was in severe financial difficulty.

Today it is the largest state-run airline in Latin America. Only Bolivia and Venezuela have similar companies, analysts said.

To shrink the airline’s footprint, Milei is deregulating the air travel sector to attract more private companies. Chile’s LatAm, then the second-largest operator, announced its departure from Argentina in 2020, citing the difficulty of operating with Argentina’s depreciating peso, high taxes and unusually strong labour union presence, and competing with the subsidised flag carrier.

Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni last week said Aerolíneas has cost taxpayers $8bn since 2008 thanks to a bloated payroll, which he said includes almost 15 pilots for each of its 81 planes, who receive benefits such as heavily discounted plane tickets for their families.

Continuing to subsidise the company would undermine efforts to eliminate Argentina’s chronic fiscal deficit, the backbone of Milei’s plan to bring down inflation, Adorni added.

Ricardo Delpiano, editor of Chile-based air industry analysis website elaereo.com, said Aerolíneas had “sharply reduced its deficit” in recent years to $246mn in 2022 through efficiency improvements and upgrades to its service.

In 2023, the company received no money from the Treasury. But people familiar with its finances said that was largely because of its ability to charge for tickets abroad at the peso’s artificially inflated official exchange rate, while converting revenue at the lower parallel rate. The company also issued $100mn in debt last year via a trust.

Critics of the privatisation proposal argue Aerolíneas should be seen as a public service, rather than a company, because it is the only airline serving about 20 small cities that are unprofitable for private groups, improving connectivity across the vast country.

“That connectivity stimulates [billions of dollars] of tourism, trade, development,” said Diego Giuliano, a lower-house Peronist lawmaker for Santa Fe province. “The people who think this is a good idea suffer from a Buenos Aires-centric view of Argentina.”

Delpiano said it would be “difficult” to find a buyer for Aerolíneas “given the company’s many unprofitable routes, and its high degree of labour conflict”.

But Milei’s allies in Congress argued that the unions’ disruptive strikes had strengthened the case for privatisation.

It is not clear whether the government has enough support to pass a privatisation bill, two of which have been presented to Congress. Its negotiators removed an article designating Aerolíneas Argentinas as “subject to privatisation” from a wider economic reform bill earlier this year because of pushback from legislators.

A May survey by pollster Trespuntozero found 49.2 per cent of Argentines supported privatisation of the airline, while 46.9 per cent opposed it. Pro-privatisation sentiment has dipped a few percentage points from 2023, but remains much higher than in 2015, when 24.4 per cent of respondents wanted the carrier taken out of state hands.

Union leaders accused the government of deliberately stimulating the protests in order to damage the workers’ reputation and garner political support for privatisation.

Rodrigo Borrás, spokesperson for ground workers’ union APA, said the government had refused to “seriously negotiate”, and that wages had not been increased since before Milei took office in December, despite accumulated inflation of 95 per cent this year.

“The offers they’ve made have been almost provocative — a 1 per cent increase,” Borrás said. “This is the perfect way for them to trigger a conflict.”

The transport secretary denied that offers had been so low, claiming they were in line with pay rises offered to other public employees who have accepted pay deals.

“The problem is these unions are accustomed to decades of excessive privileges that all Argentines have been paying for,” he said. “Those privileges ended the day 56 per cent of Argentines elected Javier Milei as president.”