The Week UK - 03.08.2019

20 NEWS Talking points

THE WEEK3August 2019

Newspapers illustrated the

story with their usual pictures

of children laughing in

fountains, and crowds

on beaches, but there was

nothing fun about last week’s

heatwave, said Janice Turner

in The Times. As the mercury

hit 38.7°C in Cambridge –

the hottest temperature ever

recorded in Britain–most of

us were more stressed than

smiling. In London, it felt “not

like afine day in Provence, but

ahellish one in Dubai”, and

the heat, followed by storms,

wrought transport chaos, as

rails buckled, overhead power

lines sagged, and flights were

grounded. For those employed in modern shops

and offices, air conditioning will have made the

working day manageable (even if their commute

was a“dangerous ordeal”); but pity the rest,

sweating in overheated hospitals, call centres

and warehouses, or labouring on construction

sites. British workers have no legal right to more

breaks, or other protections, however hot it gets.

Yet somehow, we soldier on, said Elle Hunt

in The Guardian. For six weeks in 2018,

temperatures consistently topped 30°C. It was

the joint hottest summer on record; “even the

climate-change deniers were perturbed”. And

then the temperature dropped, and life went

back to normal. This year temperature records

have fallen across Europe, but the same will be

true: last week’s headlines,

about fights in the three-hour

queues for London’s lidos, and

Eurostar travellers trapped in

40°C carriages, will be

forgotten, and another year

will go by with no lessons

learned. Of course, tackling

climate change by reducing

carbon emissions is the

priority, but we also have to

adapt to the warming world

by, for instance, creating more

green spaces in cities, and

restricting the use of heat-

trapping materials, such as

glass, in new developments.

In parts of Europe, the

authorities are already better prepared for

extreme events, said Tom Matthews on The

Conversation.Arepeat of the 2003 crisis, when

aheatwave claimed an estimated 70,000 lives

in Europe, is unlikely. But spareathought for

people in countries where heatwaves are more

extreme, and which are less able to adapt. It was

45.9°C in France in June, but in northern India,

temperatures exceeded 50°C; and it has been

predicted that in some of the most densely

populated regions of southwest Asia, humid-

heat will be so intense by the end of the century

that people will need artificial cooling to survive

–putting intolerable pressure on power supplies,

and driving mass migration. Britain needs to

adapt, but the problem is global, and we must

maintainaglobal perspective.

Pick of the week’s

Gossip

Britain’s summer: the hottest on record

Boris Johnson’s allies briefed that the new PM

was buildingacabinet that “truly reflects

modern Britain”, said Ashley Cowburn in The

Independent. And in one respect, he delivered.

Until the appointment of Paul Boateng in 2002,

there had never beenanon-white minister. Now

arecord four members (17%) of the Cabinet are

from ethnic minorities. The Chancellor of the

Exchequer, Sajid Javid, is the son ofaPakistani

bus driver, while the Home Secretary, Priti Patel,

is the daughter of Ugandan Asian shopkeepers.

Yet in other respects, the Johnson Cabinet still

looks out of touch with the general population.

At 64%, the proportion of ministers who were

privately educated is twice as high as in Theresa

May’s 2016 cabinet (and four of Johnson’s

appointees were educated at his own former

school, Eton);athird attended Oxbridge; and

onlyaquarter are female. The last isavast

improvement on the Thatcher era, when the PM

was usually the only woman at the table, but

still hardly impressive, given that on Labour’s

front bench there is near-parity of gender.

I’m not even remotely impressed by its ethnic

“diversity”, said Priyamvada Gopal in the same

paper. Sure, there areahandful of non-white

faces, but for this to count asa“victory for

diversity” we need to ask how often these people

have challenged racism–and the answer is not

encouraging. Patel backed May’s “hostile

environment” policy; Javid has “repeatedly”

associated child sexual grooming with Islam.

Unless these new ministers are going to

“champion the interests of the communities

whose painful anti-racist struggle” enabled them

to get to where they are, their appointment looks

like meaningless “diversity-washing”.

Had Johnson unveiled an all-white cabinet, the

Left would have been up in arms about the lack

of diversity. Instead, he produced the most

diverse cabinet in history, only to be told that as

it’s right-wing, it is “the wrong kind of diverse”,

said Zoe Strimpel in The Sunday Telegraph. For

the Left, diversity is only good if those diverse

people think the same way as you. Members of

ethnic minorities who have contrary views are

traitors who’ve sold their souls. There’s

something alarmingly reactionary in the idea

that minorities must all think the same way or

be branded traitors, said Kenan Malik in The

Observer. Minority groups are as politically

divided as the white population. There’s no

reason Javid’s views should be any less

obnoxious than any other Tory’s. “Perhaps the

greatest merit of the Johnson Cabinet is to make

clear that diversity exists not just within British

society, but within minority communities too.

And that, in the end, it’s the politics thatcounts.”

The Cabinet: “the wrong kind of diverse”?

London in the heat: “hellish”

Rock stars are supposed to

want to live fast and die

young–but by his mid-20s,

Mick Jaggerwas already

worrying about his old age

pension. According to the

Rolling Stones’ accountant

in the early 1960s, Jagger

thought there was no way

he’d still be performing in

late middle age, and was

anxious to make financial

provision for his twilight

years. “We started chatting,

started talking about

pensions,” recalls Laurence

Myers. “[Mick] said, ‘after

all, I’m not going to be

singing rock ‘n’ roll when

I’m 60’. We roared. It was

just aridiculous thought.”

In one of his first acts as

Leader of the Commons,

Jacob Rees-Mogghas

instructed his staff to use

imperial measurements in

their reports, give all non-

titled men the suffix Esq.,

use double spaces after full

stops, and has banned such

words as “ongoing”, ”invest

(in schools etc.)”, “yourself”

“very”, “hopefully”, and

“meet with”. Staff are also

urged to “CHECK your

work”. Alas, Rees-Mogg’s

work was perhaps not

checked carefully enough:

critics pointed out that he’d

written fullstop as one word,

when it is usually two, and

that double spaces after a

full stop started to go out

of fashion in the 1950s.

IfTheresa Maysoon feels

forgotten, even by her own

party, she won’t be the first

to have that experience. In

1997,James Callaghanwas

telephoned byavolunteer

from Labour HQ, looking

for help with the party’s

election campaign. “Have

you ever thought of being a

bit more active in politics,”

she enquired. “Well,Iwas

prime minister,” he replied.

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