The Spectator 16 January 2021.Pdf
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ESTABLISHED 1828 The right balance hen lockdown was first proposed in March, one of the many arguments against it was that people would tolerate being deprived of their liberty only for a few weeks. The W idea of criminalising basic community behaviour — welcoming a guest into your home, educating children, going to church to pray — was viewed as an extreme measure with a short shelf-life. One of the big surprises of the pandemic is to see that lockdowns, in fact, are popular in large quarters. People have complied for far longer than was ever envisaged. But it’s a careful balance — and examples of overzealous policing risk upsetting that balance. It does not help that the rules change regularly, with even government ministers saying (in private) that they have given up trying to keep track of them. If the confusion spreads to the police, then officers end up targeting people engaged in perfectly lawful activity — as happened to the two women in Derbyshire recently fined £200 each for driving five miles to meet up for a walk. Lockdown has exposed much of the best of human nature, with people willingly making huge sacrifices. A recent study by UCL into public attitudes towards the restrictions shows ‘majority compliance’ with the rules has remained at well over 90 per cent since the beginning of the crisis. It is true that the same study also shows ‘complete compliance’ peaking at just under 70 per cent in April and largely staying between 40 and 50 per cent ever since. But these figures tell a story: the vast majority of people can see the need to suspend their social lives and to keep away from other people as much as possible, but there are times when they find themselves breaking the letter of the rules — perhaps because on occasion they find it difficult, if not impossible, to comply. So it is wrong, for example, to say that because there is more traffic on the roads than in April, this is a sign of non-compliance which requires a stronger police response, bigger fines or more government warnings. The steady trickle of ministers and officials who have been caught bending the rules to suit them shows the problem. If those who advocate the rules find it difficult to abide by them, then it is hardly any wonder that the general population might also struggle at times. As Matt Hancock accepted in an interview with this magazine last week, some of the rules introduced for the first lockdown — such as preventing people from attending funerals of loved ones — were simply inhumane. It would be possible to tighten things further. There are calls to suspend freedom of worship, to close nurseries, to stop people taking a walk with a friend. But ministers would struggle to quantify what difference such measures would make to the pandemic. With fatalities growing, they are increasingly desperate and may feel compelled to show they are doing something, even if tightening the rules would make no meaningful difference to the spread of the virus. In doing so, they would risk pushing people too far and undermining the broad compliance that we have seen for almost a year now. A more humane balance is being struck this time, and this approach is all the more effective for its broad public support. ESTABLISHED 1828 Sir David Barclay, 1934-2021 hen Sir David Barclay, along with his twin brother Sir Frederick, bought The Spectator in 2004, the magazine came as a side dish with their purchase of the Daily W Telegraph. Under their ownership, that quickly changed. The Spectator (1828) became a separate company with no financial cross-entanglements. The Barclay method was to apply the three most valuable commodities any publication could ask for: patience, investment and editorial independence. We will leave readers to judge whether the magazine has improved under their ownership. But our sales have almost doubled, in a market that has more than halved, and we have had the resources to embrace the digital age with relish. Sir David’s opinions — and those of the rest of his family — on the politics of the day were a mystery, even to the editor of this magazine. No hints were dropped, no editorial favours asked. In the history of proprietorship, this is unusual, even unique. The only remit passed down was that The Spectator, the world’s oldest magazine, was at its best when serving its readers, and no one else. When Sir David died last week after a short illness, he left an extraordinary business empire, built with his brother, and will also be remembered for the philanthropy for which they were both knighted in 2000. The independence and success of this magazine is part of his legacy. PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK Home he government, in the face of overwhelming numbers of people with Covid-19 being T admitted to hospital, told everyone to stay at home and threatened them with unspecified harsher measures. The law brought into force on 6 January allowed any amount of exercise and visits to food shops, dry cleaners, takeaway restaurants, banks, pet-food suppliers, off licences, public lavatories, garden centres, bicycle shops and libraries (for collection of books ordered in advance) or anywhere for the purpose of picketing. The Speaker asked MPs to wear masks in the House, except when speaking. Two women were stopped by Derbyshire police as they walked in the country, told that the cups of peppermint tea they carried were ‘classed as a picnic’, and had to pay a £200 penalty each; five days later police rescinded the penalties. t the beginning of the week, Sunday 10 January, total deaths (within 28 days of testing A positive for the coronavirus) had stood at 80,868, including 6,298 in the past week. London’s Nightingale hospital began to admit patients, none suffering from Covid. A third vaccine, from Moderna, was approved but would not be available until the spring. The government set a target of 15 million people to be vaccinated by mid-February, having vaccinated 2.3 million by 11 January. The Queen, aged 94, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 99, were vaccinated against Covid-19. t least 160 migrants crossed the Channel to England in ten boats on Saturday and Sunday. A Khairi Saadallah was sentenced to his whole life in jail for murdering three homosexual men with a knife in a Reading park in June. Kwasi Kwarteng became Business Secretary in place of Alok Sharma. James Brokenshire, found to have lung cancer three years ago, is to leave his post as a Home Office minister for surgery on a lung tumour. Sir Simon Rattle is to leave the London Symphony Orchestra to conduct the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in Munich, in 2023. Sir David Barclay, owner with his twin Sir Frederick of the Telegraph Group, died aged 86. Katharine Whitehorn, the Observer columnist, died aged 92. Chorley beat Derby County and Crawley beat Leeds in the FA Cup. Abroad he Capitol in Washington DC was overrun by weird people supporting President Donald T Trump. One, a woman, was shot dead by law officers; a policeman died of his injuries and three other people died incidentally. Plain-clothes police drew handguns at a barricade across the door of the chamber of the House of Representatives. Scores got into the building through smashed windows and thronged the rotunda, some letting themselves down by ropes into the chamber after Congressmen had been led to safety. One man lounged in the office of Nancy Pelosi the Speaker; another carried a Confederate flag. A bare-chested man in a two-tailed coonskin hat with horns stood at the podium in the Senate. Before the riot, Mr Trump, in an open-air speech of nearly an hour, punctuated by chants of ‘Fight for Trump!’, had insisted that he had won the election: ‘Everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.’ Congress was debating objections to election results. After dark, Mr Trump tweeted: ‘Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever!’ The next day, after Twitter had blocked his account, he said: ‘The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy.’ Democrats introduced a resolution to impeach Mr Trump again, accusing him of incitement of insurrection; no action need follow for 100 days. he total number in the world who had died with coronavirus reached 1,928,531 by the T beginning of the week, an increase of 85,425 from the week before. Although Britain had the highest number of dead in Europe, its mortality at 1,188 per million was not as bad as Italy’s at 1,298 or Belgium’s at 1,721. The United States, with 379,120 dead, had a mortality per million of 1,142. China placed 11 million people in the city of Shijiazhuang under Covid lockdown. Eight gorillas tested positive for the virus at San Diego Zoo, California. ike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, said: ‘Al-Qaeda has a new home base: it is the M Islamic Republic of Iran.’ Prince Khalid bin Abdullah, the racehorse owner, died aged 83. A Boeing 737 with 62 on board crashed into the sea after taking off from Jakarta. Snow blanketed Madrid and temperatures fell to -25˚C at Molina de Aragón. CSH DIARY Andrew Sullivan he thing we most need to understand right now is how you deprogram people who have T been in a cult. By cult, I mean a group of people living out an imaginary world view created by a charismatic leader.