Month: July 2024

“In this city, everyone feels the decline of the North Sea,” says Chris Douglas, 39, who has lived in Aberdeen his whole life and began working as a taxi driver in the Granite City 20 years ago. He now has his own cab company, which in the past was entirely reliant on bookings from the oil and gas industry – today it’s “maybe 50%”, he says.

“You only have to look around: there are industrial estates decimated, hotels no longer trading. The good days are long gone,” he says. “And no political party is coming along to say they are going to rejuvenate the industry. There are just different plans for how to close it down.”

The oil and gasfields in the North Sea are in terminal decline. Last year, the oil basin produced 34m tonnes of oil, its lowest since production in the North Sea was established in the 1970s. As its accessible fossil fuels dwindle, big oil companies have pulled out of the ageing oil basin. And despite the government issuing a rush of licences since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the amount of oil set to be extracted is rapidly shrinking.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis – fuelled by gas, oil and coal extraction – is accelerating at a frightening speed and the world’s leading scientists and energy analysts are clear: there can be no new oil and gas projects if humanity is to avoid catastrophe.

In the far north-east of Scotland, this combination of factors could spell disaster for the almost 60,000 workers supported by the oil and gas industry, their families and communities. For the past four decades they have prospered on the well-paid, secure jobs North Sea oil has provided. But now they are looking into an abyss.

“Most of my friends went into the North Sea industry because for them, and for their fathers and their grandfathers, it has always been seen as a sure thing. Does the green economy offer that same security, the same pay?” Douglas says.

This is a crucial moment for these communities, according to Joe Rollin, a senior organiser at the union Unite, which represents tens of thousands of oil and gas workers. “We simply can’t let these workers be the coalminers of this generation, with all the devastation to lives and communities that would entail,” he says.

This is the challenge facing politicians in Westminster and Holyrood before this week’s general election. How do they manage the inevitable and urgent decline of North Sea oil and gas – and can they ensure a just transition to new low-carbon jobs that are fully unionised, well-paid and secure?

For Mika Minio-Paluello, a policy officer at the Trades Union Congress (TUC), there is a lot on the line.

“Whatever happens to the people working in North Sea oil and gas, it is being closely watched by those in different industries and sectors – not just across the UK but also in other countries – to see if we can take working people on this journey.

“It is a test case in some ways, for the whole idea of a just transition, of what happens when we decarbonise … we simply can’t have a repeat of what happened to coal workers in the 80s.”

The spectre of the miners’ plight after the pit closures in the 1980s hangs over this debate. The communities that were decimated when the then Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher closed the pits and smashed the coalminers’ union never recovered.

Arguably the stakes now are even higher. The escalating climate crisis demands a rapid end to fossil fuel production, but the populist right across Europe is on the rise and it has climate action in their sights – describing it as a remote, elite project being done at the expense of ordinary workers.

The UK’s main political parties are divided on the issue. The Conservative party is still promising to “max out” oil and gas in the North Sea by granting licences for new exploration every year. Meanwhile, Labour has promised to put an end to new licences, and raise taxes on the large profits being made by companies operating in the North Sea. The party is also promising “not a single job” will be lost during the transition.

In response, the Scottish National party has U-turned on its pledge to phase out fossil fuel licences and is trying to tread a “middle ground”, saying it will approve licences if they meet strict climate conditions – although most experts struggle to see how this could be possible.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the insurgent populist Reform UK party, is waiting to capitalise, vowing at his manifesto launch last month to axe net zero policies and fast-track licences to open up the North Sea.

“If we fail to do this transition in a way that takes communities with us, then we leave the way open for Farage and the far right,” said Minio-Paluello. “The risk of the far right culture wars building a wave of support on the back of our failure is very, very real.”

There is little doubt the writing is on the wall for the industry. Experts point out that the number of jobs supported directly and indirectly by oil and gas has more than halved in the past decade – from 441,000 to 214,00 – during which time the government has issued roughly 400 new licences in six licensing rounds.

According to the former head of the oil and gas regulator, new licences would make a difference to gas production only “around the edges”. Even BP’s former chief executive has said North Sea drilling is “not going to make any difference” to Britain’s energy security.

Ajay Parmar, a director at ICIS, a commodity data provider, says:“The UK’s oil supply decline has been in the works for decades. Labour’s policy will hasten the decline but only marginally.”

Critics of the Tory pitch to “max out” North Sea oil claim it is part of a culture war framing what will only result in workers being stranded in a declining industry with no plan to save their livelihoods or communities.

Analysts and trade unions agree that unless it is managed properly, the transition will have a devastating impact on the Scottish economy. According to a report by the consultancy EY, which was commissioned by the Scottish government, North Sea workers have an annual average salary of £88,000, while those working in the oil and gas supply chain earn an average of £51,000 a year. This is well above the average annual salary of £29,000 in Scotland – and above the £42,600 average wage of employees in the clean energy sector, according to figures from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.

As high wage oil jobs are replaced with clean energy roles, the gross value of Scotland’s employment sector could plummet from £19bn a year in 2019 to £12bn by 2050, according to the report.

For people like Dale Green, who has been working on the rigs for the past 22 years, those statistics could be life-changing.

“When I was growing up, the only option for me really if I wanted a good job, good money, was to work on the rigs,” said the 39-year-old scaffolder. “It has allowed me to move on from the council estate where I grew up and to be able to afford a decent life – to look after my children, get a house, get a car.”

Dale said he fears that unless the transition is properly managed the chances he has had will be denied to future generations.

“Taking away opportunities that someone like me has enjoyed, a scaffolder from a working-class community who grew up on a council estate – it could just decimate certain areas,” said Green.

If it wins the election, Labour plans to set up a taskforce with Scottish Labour, the big energy companies and the unions to “secure a future for every oil and gas worker”. It says the new jobs will mostly be in renewables, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen.

The shadow climate secretary, Ed Miliband, has promised to base Labour’s planned state-backed green power firm, Great British Energy, in Scotland. And part of Labour’s £7bn “wealth fund” will be earmarked for wind power.

But the party has dropped its expertly costed £28bn-a-year green investment pledge, sparking concerns among unions and environmental campaigners about whether it had set aside sufficient funds to ensure a smooth transition away from fossil fuels.

Critics say Labour’s plans remain vague, that there is little or no industrial base in Scotland, and that there are currently very few renewable jobs to transfer workers to. They argue a well-funded, pro-active industrial strategy will be required to create the jobs in wind turbine manufacturing, installation and maintenance, as well as in the wider supply chain for renewables.

Unite says much more needs to be done. Its general secretary, Sharon Graham, refused to sign off the party’s manifesto at its “clause V” last month – in part because of fears Labour’s plans for oil and gas workers in the North Sea were too vague.

“We should not be letting go of one rope until we have hold of another,” said Graham earlier this year. “These types of transitions must have workers at the heart. Unite will not stand by and let these workers be thrown on the scrap heap.”

The union is running a grassroots “No ban without a plan” campaign across the north-east of Scotland calling for Labour to outline a more detailed and funded set of proposals before banning new licences. Last week, more than 200 small businesses published a letter backing the campaign and calling on Labour to spell out exactly where the jobs will come from.

Previously this position might have seen trade unions pitted against climate groups calling for a rapid winding down of the industry. However, behind the scenes there has been an unlikely alliance emerging. Last week, 60 leading climate organisations including Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Oxfam UK and Extinction Rebellion signed an open letter calling for a “clear and funded” transition plan for workers and communities reliant on the oil and gas industry.

The letter, which was sent to all party leaders, is based on a report created in consultation with workers and backed by Unite, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), and Unison Scotland.

A spokesperson for Unite said it welcomed “support from the climate movement”.

“We are fully behind a transition to greener energy, but this must be a fair transition, one that has workers and communities at its heart … we will continue to work with climate groups who are calling for ambitious government action on a just transition.”

Ruby Earle, from campaign group Platform, which helped coordinate the letter, said it shows “how far the climate movement and unions have come in building relationships”.

“Government support for a just transition cannot be an afterthought. A clear and funded industrial strategy, alongside publicly owned energy, is not only essential for workers, communities, and the millions of people living in fuel poverty, but also to ensure the transition happens within climate limits.”

Jake Molloy, a former oil and gas worker and trade unionist for the best part of 20 years, who now sits on the Scottish government’s Just Transition Commission, is at the sharp end of this emerging coalition.

“If I had suggested, 20 years ago [to his colleagues in the industry] that they go and meet Greenpeace or another climate group, they would have thought I meant for a fight because these groups were seen as wanting to destroy our jobs, our communities.”

But he said that had changed in the last few years, with a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes. Molloy said this had resulted in more and more climate groups recognising that the necessary transition away from fossil fuels could not be done at the expense of ordinary working people. At the same time, some unions and workers have accepted that the transition was both necessary and – if done correctly – positive.

“More and more people on both sides are realising that this is an industrial revolution on an unprecedented scale and that we need change – change so fundamental as to strip away the ideology that we’ve worked in for the last 40 years.”

Molloy warned that the many of the much-heralded “new jobs” in renewables simply did not exist in Scotland – citing a recent windfarm development which has been built, installed and maintained entirely by overseas companies and governments.

Tessa Khan, director of campaign group Uplift, said the next government needed to “get everyone around the table – the Scottish government, trade unions, worker representatives and affected communities – to come up with a coherent plan that works in everyone’s interests.”

Crucially, she said, the transition plans must be taken out of the hands of the oil and gas industry.

“The majority of operators in the basin invest nothing in UK renewable energy, but nor are they investing in UK oil and gas production. The record profits of recent years have gone to their shareholders, not to investment in the transition. [They] aren’t interested in creating clean jobs and growing the UK economy, but in making as much money as they can for themselves, for as long they can get away with it.”

Earlier this month the supreme court in London ruled the climate impact of burning oil and gas must be taken into account when deciding whether to approve projects. Experts say this is likely to be another nail in the coffin of North Sea oil and gas, making it it harder to secure new licences. It could even threaten some of those that have already been approved, including the controversial Rosebank oil and gas field, which is to be operated by Norwegian company Equinor. A Labour source said that if the party did form the next government, and Rosebank was still in the balance, then ministers could refuse the remaining consents it needed to operate.

Molloy, who has spent years working on a just transition for his colleagues in the industry, said that whatever the result in this week’s election it was essential that politicians and corporations were not able to pit those worried about the climate crisis against those who wanted to ensure a decent future for workers, their families and communities.

“I‘ve got four grandsons who will never forgive me if I get this wrong, and I’ve been trying for considerable time to get it right, because their future – and that of millions around the world – relies on us getting this right.”

You should never flex about how much sleep you got
If someone had a headache, you would never reply: “That’s funny, my head feels great.” For some reason, any mention of insomnia will unleash a chorus of: “I slept like a baby!”; “Soon as my head hit the pillow!” It’s annoying at any time, but at festivals, the sleep-deprived hit critical mass, and they will turn. If you can sleep through anything, keep quiet about it. Let your bright eyes and dewy complexion do the talking.

Natural deodorant is no match for outdoor life
In any bucolic idyll, you might be tempted to eschew chemical assistance in favour of tea tree or bark or whatever. Fine, go for it, but after half an hour in a festival field, stomping between stages, don’t expect to smell like anything but your own sweet self.

There is limitless demand for a lesbian bar
Scissors, co-created by Laura Woodroffe, is the first lesbian bar in the festival’s history. I know, weird: were the 80s asleep? Anyway, it had it all – a hairdresser, a pool table, a secret nightclub – and anyone would join that queue. But how many people would stay in it all weekend? A lot, as it turns out.

You should shower before you go to bed – even at home
It feels so wrong, like eating cereal for dinner, or wearing your clothes inside out. But once you’ve broken with the custom of the morning being your clean-time, you’ll find this is liberating, actually. Particularly if you never liked getting wet in the first place, you can go to sleep and forget it ever happened.

Adults, given a ball, will play with it (see also: given confetti, will keep it)
They think they’re so grownup, adults, with their time-keeping and their protein shakes. Throw a giant inflatable football into a crowd of them, however, and they’ll play keepy-uppy with the demonic intensity of a cat.

You shouldn’t wait for a ­musician to tell you to hug each other; just do it
Cynic you: “Tsk, they learn this in stage school. Any time a performer needs a bit of a breather, they tell everyone in the audience to turn round and give each other a hug.”

You, hugging your friend: “Man, I love this friend. Why don’t I hug them more often?”

You, hugging a stranger: “You seem nice, would you like some chewing gum?”

Why not synthesise all these selves and just hug people more often?

10,000 steps is so last decade; if you can walk 10k, you can walk 30k
Think big. Stop being in such a rush, with your transport and whatnot.

If you lose your voice, you should try not talking
It feels like such a badge of honour, losing your voice after yelling all night, and then you get into clarifications (“I wasn’t screaming at the Bootleg Beatles, I was screaming at Little Simz”), and then you essay a fake apology (“Sorry I’m so husky, I’ve been having an insane amount of fun, you see”). The thing is, though, nobody can hear you.

What Brat Girl Summer means
Charli xcx defined the brat as someone with: “A pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra,” and it’s her album, so she should know. However, it’s taken on a life of its own, with people making their own Brat merch and appropriating the post-Covid idea of a Hot Girl Summer. To have a Brat Girl Summer, yes, first smoke and wear no underwear; beyond that, there’s no list of rules to break, but whichever one you do, it needs to be in a knowing and triumphant way.

Being in a girl band makes you immortal
No, no, I don’t mean Mel C looks great, or the Sugababes can still pull a surprising crowd. They just all have a quality of undimmable life force that makes it really hard to imagine them subject to that oldest of human frailties: mortality.

A certain type of man will cross the road to tell you why you shouldn’t like Coldplay
He probably won’t be part of your group, but he’ll overhear you talking to your friend, or maybe on your way to see Coldplay. He’ll explain how they’re very hackneyed, actually, and more like children’s entertainers these days. But then he’ll double-back and say even at the beginning, they were rubbish, and he’ll list some other bands you should like instead. These will be nothing like Coldplay. In the old days, before the internet, if he was in your house, this man would throw your Coldplay CDs out of the window. You shouldn’t have let this man in your house. In the really old days, before Coldplay, this man would have crossed the road to tell you why you shouldn’t like Philip Larkin.

In a crowd, you must learn when to stop pushing
Fortune favours the brave and all that; you definitely shouldn’t stand at the edge like a dormouse, daydreaming about the mosh. But being able to judge the exact number of dirty looks you can take before you accept your place in the crowd is a life skill, which will also serve you at busy stations and royal events.

Men’s football puts people in a bad mood; women’s football puts them in a good mood
It was a constant matter of debate, whether or not Glastonbury would show the England game on Sunday evening, and half-fans thought they should, and full-fans thought they shouldn’t, because it would stink the place out if they lost, and non-fans didn’t care, and all fans of women’s football said: when they screened the Women’s World Cup at Green Man last year, England lost, and everyone still finished in a wild good mood. QED.

The moustache is back (again)
When young men first started sporting moustaches, it was so that, if they got lost, you would know to return them to east London. For a while after that, it was ironic, and then all the men started doing it for charity. Now they’re just doing it because they think it looks nice, which a lot of them do. Well done, moustachioed men.

There’s always one person who overperceives risk
In normal life, this is the person who’ll tell you your shoelaces are undone, or that the zip on your bag is open, and you have to rectify the sloppiness and thank them, even though you were pretty happy as you were. At festivals, these people go into overdrive and see danger everywhere, their minds constantly fast-forwarding to the moment where the bin attracts a rat and then, wham, everyone has cholera.

I watched, rapt, at LCD Soundsystem, as a woman told her friends that someone had better pick up that orange, in case someone trod on it. One did pick it up. But now what? Sadly, the second lady had a low perception of risk, and she threw it and it hit someone on the head. It would have been better to leave the orange where it was.

It’s OK to settle, with food
Don’t sweat it, if you had a mac and cheese that tasted like elastic bands made of Dairylea. Your appetite is infinitely self-replenishing. It will find love again.

Fireworks never get old
You might think that unpredictability is the main component of excitement, and therefore fireworks, being entirely predictable, are no longer for you. This is incorrect. You know what Gandhi said – even a single indoor sparkler is better than no sparkler.

You know the notion: take your litter home with you? You can take your festival personality home with you as well
Perhaps you were warmer and more open, in the festive environment; readier with a smile, more tolerant of loud noises and unexpected turns of event, more positive in outlook. You know you can also be like this at home, right?

There’s a right and a wrong way to lend, steal, borrow or unplug a charger
Let’s imagine someone needs a charger: emphatically do not start: “Let me have a look.” First, find out exactly what they need; USB-C, lightning or micro or something else? Do they need the base or just the lead? The minute you say you’re going to look for something, in their heads, that means you’ll find one: so when you don’t, you’ll live on in their heart as nothing but a massive disappointment.

If you ask to borrow something, don’t over-invest in the lender, because they probably won’t have read my first rule, and the likelihood is they won’t have one.

In a power-sharing environment, never unplug anything below 25%.

There’s a trick to getting served
This is the scene; you’re right at the front of the bar, but there are 20 of you and only three staff; if you’re not confident you can be served next, field it. “That person’s next,” you say, winningly, pointing to your neighbour. You’re then guaranteed to be served after that.

You need to learn some people’s names
Anyone you’re going to see regularly – if you like the same coffee place, regularly go through the same turnstile – introduce yourself, remember whatever name comes back. That way, if you ever want to say “thank you”, it’ll sound like you mean it.

You should alternate your shoes
Always take two pairs with you, and switch them. It keeps your feet on their toes.

… and share your sunscreen
You can go wild with generosity: it’s like the magic porridge pot, sun cream – it never runs out. Also, if you have your act together, packing two of any light essentials (sunglasses, lip salve, vape juice if you’re that kind of lowlife, wet wipes) will make you much more popular than you objectively deserve to be.

It’s goodbye novelty yoga, hello (again) Joe Wicks
Power ballad yoga was the end point of silliness for the apparently ageless meditative exercise that seems to need to constantly refresh itself with goats and nudity. Joe Wicks, on the other hand, once the saviour of lockdown, now bringing his workouts to festivals, needs nothing but his own alarming energy.

The full-size adult whale was first spotted a week earlier with approximately 200 metres of rope and fishing buoys wrapped around it. In a multi-agency operation, rescuers were able to free the animal of 800kg ropes and buoys. However, because of how the rope was wrapped around the whale and safety concerns for rescuers, the crew were not able to disentangle all of the rope. Ellen Dwyer, an incident controller in the rescue team, says they are ‘pleased’ they have been able to ‘successfully remove a significant amount of weight and rope from the whale’

A humpback whale which became tangled in 800kg of fishing equipment has been rescued off the Gippsland coast, almost a week after it was first seen to be in trouble.

The whale was spotted near Loch Sport in Central Gippsland on Sunday 23 June by a commercial helicopter, but then disappeared until Friday when it was seen near Lake Tyers off the south-east coast.

A large-scale rescue operation, run by specialised whale disentanglement crews from the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Victorian Fisheries Authority and Parks Victoria, began by attaching a tracker to the whale so they would not lose it again.

On Saturday the team cut off 800kg of tangled ropes and buoys, which had severely restricted the animal’s ability to swim. Police lifted the equipment out of the water with a crane to make sure it was not dangerous to other vessels or wildlife.

The DEECA incident controller Ellen Dwyer said rescuers removed approximately 185 metres of the 200 metres of rope the whale was believed to be entangled in, as the animal was “moving around a fair bit”, making it difficult for the rescue team to approach from a closer distance.

She said despite being tangled in rope and buoys, the whale was in “good spirits”.

Insp James Dalton of Victoria’s water police said the search was completely different to the ones they were used to.

“The whale was so tightly tangled in the ropes and it wasn’t travelling very far so we knew it was in real distress,” he said.

“To safely cut the ropes away, we needed to return the following day to ensure we could successfully remove enough of the rope that it could swim freely again. This was a huge team effort and we’re so happy that it had a great outcome.”

Whales are recorded to live beyond 50 years but some of the biggest risk factors to their lives are human activities including fishing gear, boats and pollution and natural predators such as orcas.

The marine tour operator Peter Lynch said “this year we expect to see more whales than in previous years”.

“It’s a recovering population and it’s another success story that Australia and Queensland should be proud of,” he said, referring to the population growth of 500 – when hunting was banned – to approximately 35,000-40,000 whales today.

As whales migrate up the east coast in search of warmer waters, more than 127,000 domestic visitors were expected to travel to see the whales.

There had already been a 37% increase in interest in nature-based tourism this year compared to 2023.

It was expected to bring $5.6bn to the Queensland economy.

“Not only is it good for tourism … [and] our visitor economy, but it educates people on the importance of the delicate ecosystem,” the Queensland tourism minister, Michael Healy, said.

The US Department of Justice is set to charge Boeing with fraud, but plans to offer the planemaker a plea deal, according to sources familiar with the matter – have infuriated the loved ones of hundreds of passengers who died in two fatal crashes five years ago.

Boeing will be granted until the end of this week to decide whether it will plead guilty to the charge and avoid trial, officials told families of those on board the fatal Lion Air flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 that claimed 346 lives.

Attorneys representing the relatives accused the federal government of cooking up “another sweetheart plea deal” with Boeing. On a conference call on Sunday, one official is said to have been asked by a family member how he sleeps at night.

Relatives were briefed on the terms of the proposed deal during the call: Boeing would pay a fine, face a three-year term of probation, and work under a corporate monitor, according to two sources.

The terms unleashed a wave of anger. “The memory of 346 innocents killed by Boeing demands more justice than this,” said Paul Cassell, who represents the families of 15 crash victims.

Erin Applebaum, another attorney acting for relatives of those lost, attacked the proposal as “shameful” and said it “completely fails to mention or recognize the dignity” of the victims.

The families will make the case to a judge, and the wider public, for this deal to be rejected, Applebaum said. “And when there is inevitably another Boeing crash and DoJ seeks to assign blame, they will have nowhere else to look but in the mirror.”

The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two crashes of Boeing’s 737 Max, in October 2018 and March 2019, killed 346 people. It prompted the worldwide grounding of the jet for almost two years.

In 2021, the justice department and Boeing reached a controversial deal that protected the company from a criminal conspiracy charge to commit fraud that arose from the two crashes.

Earlier this year, however – as the company came under intense scrutiny after a brand-new 737 Max jet was forced into an emergency landing when a cabin panel blew off mid-flight – the justice department said Boeing had breached this agreement.

The deal it has been offered “appears to be a sweetheart deal”, said Sanjiv Singh, counsel for 16 families of crash victims, citing a request for the Department of Justice to independently appoint a corporate monitor of Boeing, rather that permit the company to nominate its own candidates. “I am stunned that the department deflected our demand and fell back on ‘oh it’s policy’,” he said.

Relatives of those who died “will strenuously object to this plea deal”, said Cassell, who described the agreement as a “no-accountability-deal”.

“The deal will not acknowledge, in any way, that Boeing’s crime killed 346 people,” Cassell said. “It also appears to rest on the idea that Boeing did not harm any victim.”

Separately, as Boeing continues to grapple with the crisis triggered by January’s cabin blowout, Reuters reported on Sunday that it had agreed to buy Spirit AeroSystems – a key supplier – in a deal which values the firm at more than $4bn.

England (4-2-3-1)

Jordan Pickford (GK) Bemused by everything that unfolded in front of him. No chance with Schranz’s goal. 6

Kyle Walker (RB) Dreadful passing and he was repeatedly exposed by Haraslin. But hurled in throw for equaliser. 4

John Stones (CB) Looked like his mind was elsewhere. Awful distribution. Knuckled down in extra-time. 4

Marc Guéhi (CB) Suspended for next round after Trippier’s hospital ball. Beaten before Slovakia’s goal. Then a big assist. 6

Kieran Trippier (LB): Unlucky not to get an assist. But lack of left foot a problem all tournament. 4

Kobbie Mainoo (CM) Did not protect defence well but he showed personality on the ball. Drove England forward. 6

Declan Rice (CM) Faced with too many runners. Struggled in possession, hit post. Better when England led 2-1. 5

Bukayo Saka (RW) Teammates too slow to find him. Flickered at times. Unselfishly played left-back and right wing-back. 6

Jude Bellingham (AM) Frustrating for long spells. Then saved England with an absurd bicycle kick. Who else indeed? 7

Phil Foden (LW) Thought he had equalised, only for VAR to intervene. Ineffective on left. Final product poor. 4

Harry Kane (CF) Had a shot blocked, missed a sitter. Off pace. Scored the winner. Work that out. 6

Substitutes: Cole Palmer (for Trppier, 66) Offered creativity after his belated introduction. Should have started. 7; Eberechi Eze (for Mainoo, 84) Flashed the ball back into the box for England’s second goal. Had to play left wing-back. 7; Ivan Toney (for Foden, 90+4) Spooked Slovakia after coming on in added time – such a smart assist for Kane, 7; Conor Gallagher (for Kane, 105), 6; Ezri Konsa (for Bellingham, 105) 7

Slovakia (4-3-3)

Martin Dubravka (GK) Barely had anything to do before England’s goals. Strong in the air, relieving pressure at set pieces. 6

Peter Pekarik (RB) Caught out of position for England’s disallowed goal. Missed a glorious chance to equalise. 6

Denis Vavro (CB) Made an important block when Kane threatened. Stood firm but resistance faltered at the end. 6

Milan Skriniar (CB) The Paris Saint-Germain centre-back shone, only for Bellingham to take over. Toney unsettled Slovakia too. 6

David Hancko (LB): Overlapped and shot wide. Had the unenviable task of marking Saka and Palmer. Kept going. 7

Stanislav Lobotka (CM) Ran midfield during the first half, knitting everything together. England could have done with his intelligence. 7

Juraj Kucka (CM) Headed on for the opener. Involved in plenty of clever moves. Picked up early booking. 7

Ondrej Duda (CM) Slovakia’s mastery of midfield owed much to them playing as a team. Fought hard but tired. 6

Ivan Schranz (RW) Continued his goalscoring form by running through to beat Pickford. Stole limelight from England’s stars. 7

David Strelec (CF) Split England with lovely ball to Schranz. Almost scored from halfway line after a mix-up. 7

Lukas Haraslin (LW) Dangerous before going off. Kept bursting behind on the left. Nutmegged Walker at one point. 7

Substitutes: Robert Bozenik (for Strelec, 62) 6; Tomas Suslov (for Haraslin, 62) 6; Laszlo Benes (for Duda, 81) 6; Matus Bero (for Kucka, 81) 6; Norbert Gyomber (for Schranz, 90+3) 6; Lubomir Tupta (for Pekarik, 109) 6.