Features

Saturday

Kate Andrews

Will coronavirus push globalisation into reverse?

Ten years ago, the World Health Organisation issued a new definition of ‘pandemic’: a disease that infects a large number of people and spreads quickly across the world. These days, once the first of these criteria has been fulfilled, the second is generally just behind. Everything travels faster now: goods, services, diseases and — crucially — fear. As the number of Covid-19 cases rises, so too does the cost of our reaction to it: already as much as $1.5 trillion from cancelled flights, postponed orders and businesses shutting down — an inevitable outcome in our globalised, interconnected world. A virus that germinated in Wuhan has led to the cancellation of this weekend’s rugby match between Italy and Ireland in Dublin.

Laura Freeman

Eco-friendly is not female-friendly

Forgive me, Greta, for I have sinned. It has been five days since my last Waitrose order. I meant to be good and green. To go from Whole Foods to farmers’ market with my canvas bag and eco-conscience. But it was cold and dark and the boys from the supermarket come right to the door. So I filled the bin with plastic wrappers and turtle-trappers and laid waste to my good intentions. I try, I really do. I wash every yoghurt pot, rinse every tin. I carry a KeepCup, a water flask, a folded tote. I trudge to the Edgware Road with empty bottles for shampoo, conditioner and laundry soap and fill them up, one splurting pump at a time. I take off my make-up with washable pads. I reuse envelopes, salvage rags, turn the bed sheets sides-to-middle.

Katy Balls

Toryism, but not as we know it: an interview with Ben Houchen

Who do the Conservatives have to thank for helping them win so many seats in the north of England? Tory MPs normally name Boris Johnson, for his different approach to politics. Sometimes Dominic Cummings, too, for applying focus. But there’s one other figure regularly mentioned as a patron saint of Red Wall Tories: Ben Houchen, mayor of Tees Valley. He’s perhaps the most influential politician you’ve never heard of. The initial Tory breakthrough in the north-east of England came three years ago when Houchen, aged 30, beat the Labour favourite to become metro mayor. ‘I thought I’d give it a good go, put up a bit of a fight, cause the Labour party a bit of a black eye — then hopefully do well and move on to something else.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary’s guide to coronavirus etiquette

The first piece of advice is to view coronavirus as a blessing. ‘If only there could be something to unite all humans against a common enemy — like a meteorite heading towards earth,’ said my wise older friend Anne some years ago, ‘then all wars would stop.’ I always thought she had a point. Now corona-virus is that common enemy. And don’t forget we won’t necessarily die — only 2 per cent of us, mainly oldies, will.

Saturday

Ross Clark

Coronavirus and the cycle of panic

If you have just cancelled your trip to Venice and ordered your £19.99 surgical face mask from Amazon, how about this for a terrifying vision: by the time we get to April, 50,000 Britons will have succumbed to a combination of infectious disease and adverse weather. Frightened? If you are, don’t worry: you survived. It was two years ago. In 2017-18 the Office for National Statistics recorded 50,100 ‘excess winter deaths’. The explanation, according to the ONS, was probably ‘the predominant strain of flu, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine, and below average winter temperatures’. Coronavirus (Covid-19) is a pretty virulent virus all right, but not in the way you might imagine.

Alasdair Palmer

What is organised crime doing disposing of rubbish?

There were headlines recently about how more than half of local councils had recorded a large increase in the number of ‘fly-tipping’ incidents: cases where rubbish and waste are collected, then illegally dumped and left to rot in open fields. That practice normally has dire consequences for the local environment, and sometimes for the health of animals and people who live close by. Various sources were quoted claiming that organised criminal gangs were usually responsible for illegal fly-tipping. On the face of it, that is an astonishing claim. What is organised crime doing disposing of rubbish? But no one seems interested in finding out what lies beneath it.

Katy Balls

What would a Keir Starmer Labour party look like?

There’s still a month of the Labour leadership contest to go but most MPs have already concluded that Keir Starmer will win. The shadow Brexit secretary has led in every category so far: MPs, unions and local parties. As the contest enters its final stage, polling suggests the membership agree and Sir Keir will sail through. His closest rival, Rebecca Long-Bailey, is now seen as a ten-to-one outsider. One bookmaker is already paying out on a Starmer victory. But if the race seems all but over, the conversation about what he’ll do as Labour leader is very much on-going. Is he the leader that the party’s moderates have craved to stand up to the hard left — or a vessel for continuity Corbynism? So far, he has tried very hard not to say.

Colin Freeman

Where did it all go wrong for Tony Blair’s protege in Guinea?

When Alpha Condé ‘Le Professeur’ became president of Guinea in 2010, he was hailed by Tony Blair as an ideal leader — the very model of what an African premier should be. Unlike previous rulers, Condé didn’t shoot his way to the top, but arrived armed with a law degree from the Sorbonne and Guinea’s first ever democratic mandate. Blair chose Le Professeur as a client for his Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), set up to nurture a new generation of ‘good guy’ African leaders, and Condé was introduced to a network of experts — not woolly DfID types, but sharp tacks with Downing Street experience. The idea was to replicate Mr Blair’s successful policy ‘delivery unit’ across Africa.

Melissa Kite

Spare me the ‘furbabies’ – the humanisation of pets has gone too far

‘Can my dog meet your horse?’ asked the woman, as her German shepherd lunged at me, making my thoroughbred jump up and down in panic. We had been riding through the woods, a friend and I, when we came across one of those dog-walking clubs. Up to a dozen of what looked like former guard dogs and their owners came round a bend on the track towards us. ‘He just wants to say hello!’ the woman persisted. How many times have we all heard that from a dog-owner in the park before said beast pounces and humps us half to death? So I told her very firmly: ‘Absolutely not. Do not come any closer.’ ‘Oh, but I’m getting him used to things.’ I’ve had this before. ‘Listen here. My horse is not a practice prop for your dog.

James Forsyth

Le crunch: are the Brexit talks doomed before they begin?

When Boris Johnson and the new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met in Downing Street last month, they agreed on one thing immediately: that it was time to stop the sniping, animosity and backbiting that had characterised the first round of the Brexit talks. The Prime Minister emphasised that Britain wanted to be the EU’s close friend and ally. Only a few weeks later, and already the Brexit wars are back. The two sides are so far apart that many diplomats think there is a better-than-even chance that the talks will fail. One member state is already planning around the central assumption that there will be no deal by the December deadline. For its part, No. 10 is braced for the talks to collapse sooner rather than later.

Saturday

Leo McKinstry

My Parkinson’s diagnosis has shown me how kind society really is

Like Ozzy Osbourne, I was last year diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the degenerative condition that impairs the functioning of the body. In a series of recent interviews, Osbourne has spoken frankly about the impact of the neurological disorder. ‘That thing has knocked the shit out of me,’ he said, Brummie-style. I’m with Ozzy. It’s done the same to me. My difficulties began about 18 months ago, when my left leg developed an involuntary twitch, which soon extended to my other limbs. My gait became increasingly awkward, alternating between a strange quickstep and a longer, more laboured shuffle, complete with stoop and limp. The effect was like a cross between John Inman in Are You Being Served?

Matt Ridley

Why have so many of our recent diseases come from bats?

I’m no Nostradamus, but 20 years ago when I was commissioned to write a short book about disease in the new millennium, I predicted that if a new pandemic did happen it would be a virus, not a bacterium or animal parasite, and that we would catch it from a wild animal. ‘My money is on bats,’ I wrote. We now know that the natural host and reservoir of the new coronavirus, Covid-19, is a bat, and that the virus probably got into people via a live-animal market in Wuhan. This is not the first disease bats have given us. Rabies possibly originated in bats. So did, and does, Ebola, outbreaks of which usually trace back to people coming into contact with bat roosts in caves, trees or buildings.

Freddy Gray

Battle of the billionaires: Trump vs Bloomberg could be the nastiest election ever

‘There are two things that are important in politics,’ said Mark Hanna, the American senator, in 1895. ‘The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.’ In 2020, Hanna’s maxim could be updated: the second thing is being an old white guy from New York. The presidential election is 36 weeks away and it looks as if the winner will be one of three men. There’s the Manhattan billionaire incumbent, Donald Trump, 73, whose fortune is estimated at $3 billion (he claims eight). There’s the socialist outsider from Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders, who is 78 and worth $2.5 million. And last but not least is 78-year-old Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the richest fruit in the Big Apple, weighing in at a whopping $64 billion. Money, money, money.

Sam Leith

The internet is taking the joy out of quotations

‘Quotation (n.) — The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.’ Ambrose Bierce said that, or at least wrote it in the Devil’s Dictionary. That was in 1906, and those are words for the ages. In his Rhetoric, centuries before the birth of Christ, Aristotle identified one of the most common and effective ways of making an argument seem stronger. In his section on ‘proofs’ he talked about what he called ‘ancient witnesses’. By this he meant not only the testimony of witnesses such as you might call in court — but the witness borne by proverbs and quotations. Any speaker or writer can get an extra fillip of authority by quoting a revered forbear. Don’t just take my word for it, we say: Shakespeare or Montaigne put it best.

Paul Collier

Northern lights: Seven steps for levelling up Britain

If you ever need a reminder of what northern Britain has achieved, I’d recommend a trip to York. The National Railway Museum brilliantly evokes the local creative energy that produced Stephenson’s Rocket which ran on the world’s first inter-city passenger railway and ushered in the railway age. Just over the River Ouse is the chocolate museum, which celebrates York’s chocolate-makers and their entrepreneurial legacy. It’s easy to be scornful about Boris Johnson’s talk of ‘levelling up’. Real levelling up would mean that for the foreseeable future, the North will grow faster than London, which seems almost unimaginable to Whitehall and in the City.

Saturday

Ross Clark

The government’s plans for a pandemic are both reassuring and alarming

Like the Trumpton fire brigade, Britain’s disaster planners have had precious little opportunity to show off their skills over the past few decades. Plans for a nuclear war merely gathered dust. Global pandemics failed to arrive, as did a no-deal Brexit. Just about the only crisis requiring nationwide emergency planning concerned foot and mouth disease in 2001 when six million animals were slaughtered and Labour ministers announced ‘the countryside is closed’, killing off rural businesses, yet still failed to prevent the spread of the disease from Cornwall to Northumberland.

Fredrik Erixon

The death of the centre in European politics

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Leo Varadkar. He positioned himself as Ireland’s champion and even ended up with a decent deal. He expected some kind of electoral dividend in the snap election as he urged voters to stay away from the dangerous fringes occupied by Sinn Fein. Instead, they turned to Sinn Fein in record numbers — ending the two-party system that has governed Irish politics for a century. In Ireland, this is unprecedented, but it fits a trend for Europe as a whole. Voters have been rebelling against old, established ‘centre-ground’ politics, and all around Europe, established politicians have responded by attacking voters. They’ve called their own electorate extremists, fruitcakes, loons, racists — or worse.

Laura Freeman

The rise and rise of the museum cafe

Saatchi & Saatchi started it. ‘V&A: An ace caff, with quite a nice museum attached,’ said the ad campaign of the late 1980s. Other slogans in the series played on themes of taste and tastiness — ‘Where else do they give you £100,000,000 worth of objets d’art free with every egg salad?’, ‘All right, the mirror’s seen better days but the currant buns are very tasty’ — but it was the ace caff quip that stuck. Egg salad and currant buns seem quaintly retro now. At the V&A last weekend it was seared salmon and caper salsa, cavatelli and butternut squash, beetroot pesto and sriracha wraps. I sat under the olive boughs of the Morris Room and ate my feta and olives to the strains of a baby grand.

Jason Goodwin

Pangolins are being blamed for coronavirus – and I’m sorry for eating one

Pangolins are in the news. It may be that the small ant-eating mammal covered in armour plating was the source of the virus striking fear into the heart of the Chinese state and giving us all a nasty turn elsewhere. I rather hope it does turn out to be the pangolin, for if that is the case I may have inadvertently acquired immunity, and the pangolin some timely protection. The Chinese are catholic eaters, free from the taboos we have erected around the food we eat. Try serving tripe to your friends, or tongue to the young, and see what happens. The last truly poly-phagous Englishman was the Victorian naturalist Frank Buckland, who ate everything that crossed his path in his role of unofficial vet to London Zoo. He snacked on puppy, giraffe and fried viper.

Rana Mitter

The Korean wave: how Seoul film and music won over the world

If you think that Boon Jong-ho’s Parasite (which won four Oscars this week, including Best Picture) is pretty black as comedies go, you should try the South Korean film The President’s Barber. Set in 1970s Seoul, a working-class hair clipper is appointed to tend the dictatorial leader Park Chung-hee, and tensions grow between his family and the upper-class presidential entourage. The barber becomes convinced that the head of state is a vicious, violent maniac, and his son ends up as the victim of an electrode punishment — played onscreen for laughs of the bleakest kind.