TheTimes8April2020

24 1GM Wednesday April 8 2020 | the times

Comment

Y

esterday the High Court of

Australia unanimously

overturned the conviction

of Cardinal George Pell for

the sexual abuse of two

boys, of which he was found guilty in

December 2018.

The cardinal is in the business of

forgiveness so it’s right that he holds

no ill will towards the young man on

whose unsupported evidence he was

convicted. It’s harder to sympathise

with the politicians, pressure groups

and pundits who made it near

impossible for the cardinal to secure

a fair hearing in the first place.

I felt at the time it wasn’t so much

improbable as impossible for Pell to

have perpetrated the appalling

offences. It would have required him

to have nipped off from a procession

from the altar after Mass rather than

going to the door of his cathedral to

meet the congregation as usual,

having somehow discerned that

there were two choirboys hiding in

the enormous changing room, and

then, fully robed, forced himself on

them in full view of passers-by. You’d

need to be not just athletic (he was)

but telepathic to have done all that.

Trouble was, this wasn’t just a

combative churchman on trial; it was

the church. The context for his

conviction was the perfectly

justifiable outrage at proven cases

of clerical abuse at the time. That

had led to the establishment of the

Royal Commission into child sex

abuse in 2013, and a Victoria

parliamentary inquiry.

The Australian prime minister,

Scott Morrison, summed up the

prevailing attitude in his

parliamentary apology to victims of

child sex abuse in October 2018: “I

am angry at the calculating

destruction of lives... including

those who have abused the shield of

faith and religion to hide their crimes

... They stand condemned... On
behalf of the Australian people... I
simply say [to victims], I believe you,
we believe you, your country
believes you.”
That’s right; alleged victims of

clerical child abuse would be

believed, no matter what, and their

cases would encourage other victims

to come forward.

But that’s not what justice is about.

Pell’s trial wasn’t, as he put it, a

referendum on the church’s record; it

was about what he did, or didn’t do.

When he was convicted, victims’

groups rejoiced; yesterday one

declared: “This ruling will send the

message that survivors should stay

hidden and silent.”

No. It sends the message that the

justice system is not about group

therapy or expressing revulsion at

the crime of which a man is accused.

The same goes for MeToo trials,

which have turned into a show of

solidarity with female victims of

abuse. A trial is about a man’s guilt or

innocence based on evidence. And

Pell was not guilty.

The llamas

are in for

the shock of

their lives

I’

ve broken the news and the

llamas are in shock. Roe deer

are advancing into the hills

behind our house, and our

llamas, who have never seen

a deer before, wait nervously for

the encounter.

On my walk yesterday through the

wood next to the llamas’ wood, I

spotted a llama-sized creature,

sandy-brown, with a distinctively

white-marked bottom (not dissimilar

from our Vera) running through the

Scots pine trees: almost certainly a

roe deer, creatures I’ve never seen in

these parts before.

Llamas respect horses (who in

turn are totally spooked by llamas),

ignore cows, detest dogs and foxes,

and consider cats, hares, rabbits,

squirrels and every kind of fowl

beneath their notice. Running at

them, they drove all the badgers out

of their wood ten years ago, never

to return. But deer? We shall have

to see.

Animal magic

S

eriously though, I do think wild

animals can possess some

atavistic sixth sense that humans

are in disarray or on the retreat.

Somehow, they know. “Crowns fell

from holy statues, ominous birds/

Defiled the day, and wild beasts were

seen/ Leaving the woods, lodge in

the streets of Rome” wrote

Christopher Marlowe more than four

centuries ago, translating the Roman

poet Lucan, writing 15 centuries

earlier about signs and portents.

Now goats are apparently invading

Llandudno. They know.

Wait for the last Tube of the

night on the London

Underground and you’ll see the

mice coming out to play. They

know. Jackdaws here are gaining

in confidence. They know.

This week I’ve seen rats not

so much scurrying as

striding across our garden.

They know. When this

virus thing is over I shall

have made a big steel

cage to encase our

Compostabin which is

becoming an

overflowing free

foodbank for rats now the

dustmen don’t come. The

cage will have a tunnel-

thwarting mesh base, as

Compostabins must sit on

the soil. I’ll keep you posted. If the

jackdaws don’t get me.

Mob madness

A

friend who lives and works in

Malawi keeps me in touch. The

HIV-afflicted African country

has been running out of condoms

now that latex manufacturers are

switching to gloves during the

coronavirus scare. Now comes a new

panic. Mobs are attacking innocent

strangers, believing them to be

bloodsucking vampires. Individuals

and property are being torched, and

police are struggling to get a grip.

People are living in fear, sleeping

in groups and attacking suspects

on mere suspicion. A police

spokesman has said that after a

full investigation no evidence of

bloodsucking activity has been

uncovered, yet the

violence continues, some

of it now directed

against the police for

sheltering alleged

bloodsuckers. Incensed

by poverty and jealousy,

mobs have become prey

to rumours and are

blockading roads, looting,

and attacking business

people and commercial

property.

How different (I thought)

from our own sane and

civilised land. Then I read

Matthew Parris My Week

Britain will emerge from the crisis with banks keen to loan but firms loath to take on more debt

Economy will struggle to escape coronacoma

the fact that Britain’s SMEs, which

create the majority of new jobs, have

traditionally been deeply reluctant to

take on loans from the banks

anyway.

None of this is to say that a halting

recovery is inevitable: there are

plenty of forecasters who are more

optimistic. But the soundings I’ve

taken suggest that ministers will

need to be just as imaginative, and

determined, in helping us get over

this crisis as helping us get through

it. For example, the fall in GDP

predicted by Morgan Stanley would

create a hole in the government’s

accounts of roughly £75 billion even

before adding in the costs of the

bailout. Trying to claw back that

money from Britain’s businesses and

entrepreneurs, who will be the

engine of economic recovery, would

mean taking a scythe to any green

shoots.

At this stage of the coronavirus

crisis, with the bad news coming

thick and fast, it may seem too soon

to think about what comes next.

But the more businesses know about

the duration of the lockdown, or

how it will end, the better they

can plan.

If we want the recovery to be

V-shaped rather than resembling a

U, W or, God forbid, an L, we need

to start thinking about how to

restore the confidence of businesses

and consumers, and encourage firms

to innovate and invest. Otherwise,

we risk ensuring that the ghastly

human cost of the virus is matched

by lasting economic harm.

Robert Colvile is director of the

Centre for Policy Studies think tank

become even more reluctant to

spend.

There’s also an unfortunate sense

that this crisis is hammering away at

many of the economy’s existing

weaknesses. For example, since the

2008 financial crisis, Britain has

experienced stagnant growth on any

historical measure. One reason is

that we have struggled to persuade

businesses to invest: instead, the

economy has been kept going by

robust consumer spending.

Yet few firms, after these grisly

events, are going to be keen to open

new factories or hire new workers, at

least not until they have paid down

any debts incurred during the crisis.

Indeed, as George Osborne’s

former Treasury adviser Rupert

Harrison has pointed out, we face

the mirror image of the years after

the financial crisis. Then, companies

wanted cash but banks were focused

on cutting their own mountain of

debt. This “deleveraging” resulted in

sluggish growth, and many firms

either failed to reach their potential

or took far longer to do so.

One of the silver linings of today’s

situation is that the banks are in a far

healthier position but may struggle

to find companies that are looking to

expand or take on new debts.

This is especially true of Britain’s

small and family businesses. Yes, the

Treasury is offering support. But

even if the government is covering

the costs of renting your empty

premises, on extremely generous

terms, that money will still have to

be repaid. That is a heavy burden in

sectors such as retail and hospitality

where rental costs are second only to

payroll. And that’s before considering

B

ritain is in the midst of the

oddest recession in history.

It is one triggered not by

greed or folly but by

deliberate government

action. The game plan has been

simple: preserve as much of the

economy as possible, at barely

imaginable expense, so that it can

come bouncing back once the

lockdown ends.

That is certainly the pattern that

has been followed in many previous

pandemics: a sharp dip followed by a

sharp rebound. Sure enough,

Morgan Stanley has predicted a 5.1

per cent fall in Britain’s GDP over

the course of 2020 but an equivalent

rise in 2021.

Yet talking to those on the

economic coalface, there is growing

pessimism that the economy’s

eventual emergence from what the

Nobel prize-winning economist Paul

Krugman dubbed the “coronacoma”

may be more painful and protracted

than we hope.

For one thing, given that mass

testing is probably months away (and

a vaccine even further off) the end of

the lockdown is unlikely to be clear

cut. There won’t be a moment when

the siren sounds and we all emerge

blinking from our bunkers: instead,

most experts are talking about

relaxing restrictions in phases

according to immunity status, age,

region, or occupation. Any

exuberance will be dampened by the

lurking threat of a second wave of

the pandemic, or a renewed

lockdown.

Economic activity, in other words,

is likely to judder rather than roar

back into life. While Rishi Sunak and

his Treasury team have done a great

job of innovating at speed, there is

no bailout package which can save

every job and rescue every company.

The longer the lockdown continues,

the more damage is done to our

economy and the more previously

healthy companies we lose, with

grievous long-term effects.

But it’s not just that Britain’s

economy will be smaller (as will

everyone else’s). There’s also the

lurking menace of a modern version

of the “paradox of thrift”. This is the

idea, popularised by John Maynard

Keynes, that while it may make

sense for individuals to stop

spending, it will be ruinous for the

economy if everyone does it at once.

After a shock like this, individuals

and companies are likely to prioritise

rebuilding their finances in case of a

repeat. The problem is that the

economy only works if people are

out there spending money and

making investments. If everyone

is counting the pennies, the

economy struggles, and people

The banks are in a far

healthier position than

after the 2008 crash

The flawed trial of

Cardinal Pell was

never about justice

Melanie McDonagh

that people here are trying to torch

structures they take to be the new

5G mobile transmitting masts, in

case they are spreading the Covid-19

virus. I have long believed that

buried deep in English hearts is the

suspicion that someone, somewhere,

is probably trying to poison us — our

only uncertainty being who, and how.

Fire in the sky

S

peaking of portents, Lucan wrote

also of “stars with trains of fire”

and strange phases of the moon.

Have you heard that a “super-comet”

is hurtling towards its destruction in

the sun, and should be passing

closest to Earth at the end of this

month? Named C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)

— “Atlas” to you and me — this

massive lump of ice is pale green,

and if it hasn’t begun disintegrate

before then, could be as bright as

Venus. I hope to see it. As for the

moon, tonight (as I write, on

Tuesday) is this year’s “supermoon”

because, being both a full moon and

on its closest approach to Earth

during its elliptical orbit — and, as it

happens, visible all night if the

weather’s clear — we’re afforded an

optimal concatenation of

astronomical circumstances. When

I’ve finished writing this I shall get

ready for a late-night walk over the

hills and through the woods. Maybe

I’ll see the deer. If the jackdaws don’t

get me.

f

@RCOLVILE

Rob er t

Colvile