The Week 1307 40 2020-11-27 41

64 Pages·2020·9.16 MB·English

28 NOVEMBER 2020 | ISSUE 1307 | £3.99
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Anger management
Should Patel have been fired?

Page 6

The enduring
legacy of
Nuremberg

BRIEFING P15

Jan Morris’s
remarkable
journey

OBITUARY

P49

Why America
needs Dolly
Parton

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4 NEWS

THE WEEK 28 November 2020

The main stories…

It wasn’t all bad

Things are looking (slightly) up, said The Mail on Sunday. In
place of England’s blanket lockdown, we’re promised a new,
more coherent form of the previous tier-based
rules. The rigid 10pm pub curfew will be
softened, for instance, so that people no longer
all pour onto the street at the same time.
“And by gracious permission of Her Majesty’s
Government, we will be able to celebrate
something resembling a traditional family
Christmas.” Easing the rules on gatherings
over the festive period made sense, said The
Independent, because “many people would
surely have ignored any ban, and would then
be more likely to break the rules in future”.

With vaccines expected to be rolled out next
year, it’s more important than ever that people
pull together over the next difficult few months
to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed,
said The Guardian. The Government, for its part, must do all
it can to ensure that viable businesses are “still standing when
the country emerges from this ordeal”. The anticipated arrival
of vaccines shouldn’t lead us to push too quickly for a return
to normal life, said The Times. “Having come this far, the
country can endure a few more months of restrictions. What
is needed now is patience.”

Boris Johnson and the leaders of the devolved
nations agreed this week to a common easing
of Covid-19 restrictions over Christmas, to
allow three households to form “an exclusive
Christmas bubble”, which can meet up indoors
between 23 and 27 December. However, they
urged people to “think carefully about what they
do”, in order to avoid transmitting the disease.
The virus “is obviously not going to grant a
Christmas truce”, said Boris Johnson. If people
throw caution to the wind over the festive
period, he added, the country will have to pay
for it in the new year. England’s lockdown is
due to end next week, after which a beefed-up
version of the previous system of regional, tiered
restrictions will come into force.

Successful trial results for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca
vaccine, suggesting it would protect between 70% and 90% of
those inoculated, boosted hopes the pandemic will be brought
under control next year. England’s chief medical officer,
Chris Whitty, agreed with the PM this week that it should
be possible to “pull back” from social distancing rules in the
spring, with life perhaps returning to normal in the summer.

What happened
What the editorials said

Dreaming of a quiet Christmas?

A plan for Christmas

Sunak has “had a ‘good pandemic’ so far”, said The Sun. The
furlough scheme has generally been a success, and disaster has
been averted in the hospitality sector. But with
Britain now £2trn in debt, the Chancellor must
start to plug the hole in the public finances. And
if taxes aren’t to rise, that has to mean imposing
spending cuts, said The Times. As well as
foreign aid, the axe has fallen on public sector
workers who – unless they’re on the frontline of
the NHS, or earn less than £24,000 – face a pay
freeze. The move was met with a predictable
outcry, but the Chancellor is right to point out
that so far most public sector workers have
been shielded from job losses in the pandemic.
It’s only fair that they now share the burden of
repairing the damage to the nation’s finances.

Actually, they’ve done quite enough already, said The
Guardian. Cast your mind back to the spring, and you’ll recall
that the nation gratefully cheered the key workers – many of
whom were from the public sector – who kept the country
afloat early in the pandemic. And how does the Government
repay them? With a real-terms cut to their wages.

The Chancellor introduced his long-awaited
spending review this week with a warning that
the UK is facing an “economic emergency”.
Official forecasts see the economy shrinking
by 11.3% this year – the biggest fall in 300
years – while borrowing will hit £394bn, the
highest level in peacetime history. The number
of people out of work is expected to reach 2.6
million (or 7.5%) next year. To help see the
UK through this pandemic-induced recession,
Rishi Sunak confirmed £280bn in spending,
and a £4bn “levelling up” fund to pay for
local projects. He also announced a public
sector pay freeze and a temporary cut in
overseas aid from 0.7% to 0.5%.

Last week, Boris Johnson agreed a four-year funding deal
for the Ministry of Defence worth an extra £16.5bn. The
main items to receive funding include a new space command,
a national cyber force, and an artificial intelligence agency,
with the Royal Navy also a major beneficiary.

What happened
What the editorials said

Sunak: tough decisions

The economic emergency

A David Hockney painting that
was sold by the Royal Opera
House for £13m in October
to save the institution from
financial disaster was, it has
emerged, bought by the
venue’s chairman, who is
giving it straight back. Mobile
phone billionaire David Ross,
who also chairs the National
Portrait Gallery, said he had bid
for the 1971 portrait of former
RoH boss Sir David Webster,
“to secure it for the British
public” and to keep the arts
“as accessible as possible”.

In a rare tribute, more than 100
circuit judges, barristers and
Lord Justices of Appeal have
honoured a man believed to be
Britain’s longest-serving court
watcher – a member of the
public who takes a keen interest
in proceedings from the public
gallery. Andrew Mollison, who
died earlier this month, aged 74,
spent 42 years observing cases
in his home city of Sheffield,
and further afield. Eulogies at
the crown court are normally
reserved for judges and
barristers, but Mollison was
described as a much-loved
“institution”.

A 21-year-old endurance
athlete from Florida has
become the first person
with Down’s syndrome to
complete an Ironman event
– swimming 2.4 miles,
cycling 112 miles and running
a 26.2-mile marathon. Chris
Nikic finished the gruelling
challenge in his home state in
16 hours and 46 minutes, and
has earned official recognition
from Guinness World Records.
He started training three years
ago by completing a single
push-up, after his father noticed he was becoming increasingly
sedentary. “Goal set and achieved,” he posted online after the
race. “Time to set a new and bigger goal for 2021.”

COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM

© COVER IMAGE: JULIAN ANDERSON/EYEVINE

NEWS 5

28 November 2020 THE WEEK

…and how they were covered

What next?

“We’ve been here before,” said Mattie Brignal on Reaction.life. In March, Boris Johnson was
confident that we’d “turn the tide” on Covid within 12 weeks. In July, he predicted life would
be back to normal by Christmas. This time, though, there really are grounds for optimism. The
Pfizer vaccine, of which the NHS has 40 million pre-ordered doses, could be cleared for use
very soon. Moderna’s candidate, five million doses of which are earmarked for the UK, may
also not be far off. But the real game changer promises to be the Oxford vaccine, said Sarah
Boseley in The Guardian, of which we’ve ordered 100 million doses – enough to immunise the
UK’s entire adult population. It’s both much cheaper than the other two vaccines (£3 a dose, as
opposed to more than £15) and easier to transport, as it’s stable at normal fridge temperature.
There is also some evidence that it might reduce transmission as well as protecting individuals.

The Oxford vaccine looks very promising, said Tom Whipple in The Times, but it’s still early
days. The analysis that produced the 90% efficacy figure was based on a relatively small
subset of cases. And it’s important to remember that all these vaccine trials “happened in a
very strange world: a world of mask-wearers and elbow bumps”. Their effectiveness in normal
conditions, when people would be exposed to more viral particles, remains to be seen.

The challenge involved in distributing and administering vaccines must also be taken into
account, said Paul Hudson in the FT. In the US alone, 850 million needles and syringes will be
needed to deliver Covid and flu vaccines. “In May, the Strategic National Stockpile held just 15
million syringes.” The good news for Britain is that the NHS is good at vaccinations, said Paul
Nuki in The Daily Telegraph. Every year it inoculates at least 15 million older people against
seasonal flu. Experts believe that, if things go well, all of those most vulnerable to Covid in the
UK could be vaccinated by the end of April. The fear is that “a third wave of the virus sparked
by an overly merry Christmas” could disrupt the process by monopolising the attention of GPs,
nurses and pharmacists. All the more reason, then, for “a quiet Christmas 2020”.

What the commentators said

As of 15 December, people
arriving in the UK from
abroad will be able to reduce
their quarantine by more
than half by paying for – and
passing – a Covid test after
five days in self-isolation.

Oxford University says it
won’t repeat the mistake
of the early 1940s, when
its academics discovered
penicillin but handed all of
the rights to US companies,
reports The Daily
Telegraph. It has agreed with
AstraZeneca that the vaccine
will be distributed at cost for
the duration of the pandemic,
and in perpetuity in the
developing world. If a version
of the vaccine is needed every
year – perhaps tweaked, like
the flu vaccine – the product
could yet prove to be a
money-spinner.

What next?

The Government has at least found “a big chunk of change” for defence, said Robert Fox on
Reaction.life. As well as helping to plug a £13bn hole in the MoD’s budget, the money will help
the Armed Forces combat new threats from drones, cyber operations and chemical weapons
like the Novichok poison used in Salisbury. It will also go towards modernising the Navy,
helping Britain ready itself for combat across “land, sea, air, space and cyber”. The “renewed
focus on security is not before time”, said Edward Lucas in The Times. Not only has defence
spending fallen in real terms every year since 2010; Britain has also been slow to adapt to the
changing nature of war and the sophisticated threats posed by Russia and China. But the PM’s
announcement leaves many questions unanswered – not least how to address budget shortfalls
in other parts of the notoriously profligate MoD. Hard work and difficult choices lie ahead.

Defence is just one of the areas in which the Government’s “largesse” has been on show, said
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. In the past year, Sunak has made good on an array of “lavish”
manifesto promises, including money for police, nurses, doctors, hospitals and infrastructure
projects. Yet by nature Sunak is a fiscal conservative, and his hopes of succeeding Johnson
depend on him successfully wooing traditional small-state Tories: he’ll soon put the brakes
on spending. “Threadbare public services face deeper cuts.” Britain’s national debt has reached
its highest level since 1960, said William Hague in The Daily Telegraph. And with tax rises
difficult to sell to “an instinctively rebellious Parliament”, Sunak will need to reject demands
for endless spending if he is to restore order to the nation’s finances. For now, many of the
tough decisions are still being ducked, said Katy Balls in the I newspaper. The overwhelming
sense is that Sunak is keeping the spending taps open until a vaccination programme allows the
economy to reopen again. But the fact is that, sooner or later, something will have to give.

What the commentators said

The Chancellor announced
on Wednesday that the
national living wage is to
rise by 2.2%, to £8.91 per
hour. But he warned that
according to government
forecasts, the economy is
not expected to return to its
pre-crisis size until the end
of 2022, assuming it grows
by 5.5% in 2021 and 6.6%
the following year.

The Government is facing a
Tory revolt over its planned
cut to overseas aid, which
critics say breaches the
party’s 2019 manifesto
commitments. Baroness
Sugg, a junior minister in
the Foreign Office, resigned
over the issue shortly after
Sunak’s announcement.

What is an “unintentional” bully? The Priti Patel defence has been
much mocked (see page 6). Whether you mean to bully someone
is not really the point. People don’t often set out to be bullies, let
alone think of themselves as such. In a recent interview, Jenni Murray, ex of Woman’s Hour, seemed
to admit that she’d reduced a colleague or two to tears; but she had never, she said, been accused
of bullying: she was just a hard taskmaster. Often, we’re not aware of how we come across; and our
friends don’t see us in the round either. Years ago, when the broadcaster Ned Sherrin died, one of
his friends wrote in an obituary that Sherrin had always been kind to the “little people”. My first job
in journalism was at The Oldie magazine, to which he was a contributor. I was a “little person”, but I
didn’t find him kind: he was impatient and caustic, and telephoning him to get his copy was a small
ordeal. Happily, most of the people I dealt with there were the very models of kindness: John Grigg
(the only person to come out of The Crown well, and as nice as pie); Terry Wogan (as friendly and
warm when telephoned at home with some trifling request as he was on the telly); Miles Kington;
Mavis Nicholson; Edward Enfield; Barry Cryer... they all helped make that job a happy one. But I
didn’t really know any of them. If someone told me they’d found them monstrous to work with, I’d
be surprised and sad, but I’d have to accept it could also be true. When people are accused of bad
behaviour, it’s not enough just to say, “but they’re always so nice to me”.

THE WEEK

Caroline Law

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