TheTimes8April2020

the times | Wednesday April 8 2020 1GM 27

Leading articles

was to be incapacitated for a long time and felt

obliged to resign, that Mr Raab would emerge as

his successor. Under those circumstances the cab-

inet would be expected to pick an interim prime

minister to serve until the Conservative Party

selected a new leader. Yet in the last leadership

election held just eight months ago Mr Raab came

a distant sixth.

This lack of authority, should the situation per-

sist for more than a few days or weeks, risks having

consequences for the government’s efforts to

tackle the crisis. That is because it could hamper

Mr Raab’s ability to exercise what is ultimately the

key function of No 10 in the British system of gov-

ernment: to bang heads together to resolve inter-

departmental disputes. The danger is that where

such disputes do arise, and there have already over

the past month been several instances of this, min-

isters may be tempted to try to defer decisions, pre-

ferring to take their chances with Mr Johnson

rather than resolve them under Mr Raab. The risk

is that Britain gets dither at the very moment it

needs action.

On the other hand, there are risks too even if Mr

Raab does succeed in exerting his authority over

the cabinet. Difficult decisions lie that will test the

foreign secretary’s judgment. Those decisions are

intensely political since they relate to the setting of

priorities and allocation of resources. Indeed,

these decisions will become even more political as

the government seeks to balance the tough trade-

offs involved in any exit strategy. For example,

there are already reports of tensions between the

Treasury and the health department over what

has been crudely characterised as the “lives versus

livelihoods” debate. Future tensions might arise

over what businesses to rescue or which parts of

the country should receive support.

Mr Raab is on the face of it not in the best posi-

tion to make such judgments. The primary deci-

sions relate to domestic policies, whereas Mr

Raab’s brief cabinet career has been spent in inter-

national roles. And although he has participated

in Mr Johnson’s daily Covid-19 strategy meetings

his responsibility has been for the international

dimension, including the widely criticised slow re-

sponse to repatriating British citizens. Mr Raab

will of course now have access to all the officials

and advisers across government, including Mr

Johnson’s Downing Street aides, to help guide his

decisions. But ultimately officials can only present

options. Under the most inauspicious circumstan-

ces it is Mr Raab’s lonely task to choose, and there

are very few good options.

berry, albeit demoted to international trade, along

with the return of Lord Falconer, David Lammy

and the former leader Ed Miliband will add some

familiar faces.

Sir Keir’s victory, on 56 per cent of the vote in the

first ballot, with an extraordinary 78 per cent of

newly registered supporters, was resounding. This

does not mean that Mr Corbyn’s most tarnishing

legacy in the Labour Party — that of embedded

antisemitism — will evaporate overnight. One of

the new leader’s first acts was to rightly and pro-

fusely apologise to Jewish groups.

None of this, however, will change the essential

arithmetic of Labour’s position. The government

has a majority of 80 and there will be no general

election for years. In the age of Brexit it was

already unclear what role remained for a soft-left

Labour Party, estranged from its northern heart-

lands, not least because it was also unclear to what

extent Sir Keir supported the manifesto on which

he was prepared to fight the election of 2019. In

this time of pandemic, with the Conservative

government already writing massive cheques,

these problems are compounded. The answer will

be to find a new mode of opposition, scrutinising

the government’s response without undermining

it. The experience of lockdown is going to become

difficult for the government, as an unsteady

response starts to have political consequences.

Rival camps already exist within the cabinet and

may become more evident if the prime minister’s

absence is lengthy. The role for a credible opposi-

tion in these circumstances is not to carp and

make political capital but to ask searching ques-

tions and to be forensic in ensuring that policy is

as good as it can be.

Before going to hospital, Mr Johnson wrote to

Sir Keir asking for co-operation in fighting the

pandemic. Speculation that this could involve a

government of national unity was premature and

wrong. Instead, Sir Keir’s task is to show a deeply

concerned nation that politics can function at a

time of crisis and that a government can operate

in the knowledge that it will be held to account.

This is a trick that his predecessor never mastered.

The hope now has to be that, for the first time in

five years, the country will have an opposition

worthy of the name.

sibly a patriot amid civil war and strife, he was a spy

working for the Dutch Republic.

The evidence is a handwritten note by Marvell

on a copy of Mr Smirke, a tract he wrote in 1676

satirising Anglican clerics who opposed Noncon-

formists. Marvell wrote the note for William Free-

man, an Englishman based in The Hague who was

helping to run Dutch propaganda operations in

England. Marvell has long been regarded as a con-

troversialist who was nonetheless loyal to the

crown. Though anti-papist and hostile to courtly

excess, he welcomed the Restoration as a means of

bringing stability to a troubled realm. However,

the note on Mr Smirke suggests that, even after the

end of hostilities with the Dutch Republic in 1674,

Marvell passed intelligence to a foreign power.

William of Orange invaded England in 1688,

and he and his consort Mary were jointly en-

throned the next year. The Glorious Revolution

was bloodless only because the deposed James II,

a Catholic, declined to fight a lost cause. Dutch

espionage carried huge risks to civil order but by

fortunate happenstance the foreign coup event-

ually resulted in constitutional monarchy. For

that, with the symbolism of the Queen’s address in

our current crisis, we can at least be thankful.

Temporary Leader

Dominic Raab finds himself in an extraordinary situation in extraordinary

times. He will need the full co-operation of the cabinet if he is to succeed

It is a mark of the situation in which the country

finds itself that the cabinet manual, which sets out

the rules and regulations by which the govern-

ment is run, has nothing to say about what hap-

pens when a prime minister is unable to carry out

his duties. Boris Johnson has asked Dominic Raab,

the foreign secretary, to deputise for him while he

is incapacitated in hospital. But under Britain’s

constitutional arrangements, Mr Johnson

remains the prime minister until he resigns. Mr

Raab therefore finds himself temporary prime

minister but without the formal power to do the

job. It is generally accepted that the prime minister

is primus inter pares and that Mr Raab is a lot less

primus than Mr Johnson. Instead his authority de-

rives from the willingness of his cabinet colleagues

to accept his leadership. Under these circumstan-

ces it is vital that cabinet members set aside rival-

ries and work together in the national interest.

Yet even with the support of colleagues, Mr

Raab’s task is difficult. His biggest problem stems

from the fact that his position is temporary. The

cabinet ministers upon whose co-operation he is

depending will know that their long-term futures

will continue to hinge on Mr Johnson’s patronage.

Mr Raab has no powers to hire or fire ministers.

What’s more, it is not clear that even if Mr Johnson

Working Party

Labour can now be the serious opposition that this country needs

In an unstable world, the Labour Party is going

against the flow. The resounding victory of Sir

Keir Starmer over all other contenders to lead the

opposition marks an overdue end to the failed

leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and could herald the

start of a gradual resurgence of the party. At this

most fraught of times the prospect of a restrained,

serious and competent opposition could not be

more welcome.

Throughout this contest Sir Keir left it carefully

open to what extent he would call time on Corbyn-

ism. In his first few days in the job, that question

has been resoundingly answered. Key Corbyn

lieutenants such as Richard Burgon, Barry Gar-

diner and Ian Lavery have been removed. The

shadow cabinet also no longer has a place for John

McDonnell or Diane Abbott. The appointment as

shadow education secretary of the leadership con-

test’s foremost Corbynite, Rebecca Long Bailey, is

one of the few pieces of good news for the party’s

hard left. Lisa Nandy, who impressed during the

leadership contest, is shadow foreign secretary.

Anneliese Dodds is an untested quantity as shad-

ow chancellor but the retention of Emily Thorn-

Going Dutch

The celebrated metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell has been exposed as a spy

Almost everyone yearns for romance. Yet the

brevity of life means there is limited time in which

to gain true knowledge of a loved one. This con-

stant of relationships was matchlessly expressed

by Andrew Marvell, the 17th-century poet, in To

His Coy Mistress: “Had we but world enough, and

time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime.. .”

In his day Marvell was known less for poetry

than politics. He was a moderate Puritan who

served in the government of Oliver Cromwell and

then sat as MP for Hull. A new discovery demon-

strates that his public life was as infused with para-

dox as his assessment of the human heart. Osten-

UK: Tesco and Asos publish full-year results.

China: The lockdown is lifted in the central

city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus

outbreak began in December.

The first of the

so-called cabbage

white butterflies are

flying about in

gardens. These are

the small whites.

They come dipping

down over a wall, swirl about a bit, then

swing up again and go off over the opposite

wall. They fill gardens with far more life

than the commas and small tortoiseshells

that recently emerged. These are much less

common and just rest quietly on flowers.

The whites spent the winter not in dark

sheds but in brittle chrysalis cases hanging

on walls and have just emerged vigorously

from them. The small whites will soon be

followed by the bolder-looking large whites.

The whites will scatter their eggs on cabbage

leaves and their caterpillars will feed on

these ravenously. derwent may

In 1838 Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS

Great Western, a timber-hulled paddle-wheel

steamship, left Bristol on her maiden

voyage across the Atlantic to New York.

Evan Davis, pictured,

presenter, Newsnight, 58;

Baroness (Ros)

Altmann, pensions

minister (2015-16), 64;

Sir John Arbuthnott,

microbiologist, president,

Royal Society of

Edinburgh (2011-14), 81; Patricia Arquette,

actress, True Romance (1993), 52; Mark

Blundell, racing driver, winner of the 24

Hours of Le Mans (1992), 54; Andrew RT

Davies, AM for South Wales Central, leader

of the Welsh Conservative Party, National

Assembly for Wales (2011-18), 52; Michelle

Donelan, Conservative MP for Chippenham,

minister for universities, 36; Rt Rev Richard

Frith, bishop of Hereford (2014-19), 71;

Seymour Hersh, investigative journalist,

exposed the My Lai massacre and its cover-

up during the Vietnam War, 83; Steve Howe,

rock guitarist, Yes, Roundabout (1972), 73;

Barbara Kingsolver, author, The Lacuna

(2009), 65; Pascal Lamy, director-general,

World Trade Organisation (2005-13), 73;

Julian Lennon, musician, Everything

Changes (2011), 57; John Madden, film

director, Shakespeare in Love (1998), 71; the

Most Rev Diarmuid Martin, RC Archbishop

of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, 75; Daniel

Mulhall, ambassador of Ireland to the US,

ambassador to the UK (2013-17), 65; Air

Vice-Marshal David Murray, controller,

RAF Benevolent Fund, 60; Sir John Parker,

lead non-executive director for the Cabinet

Office (2017-19), chairman, Anglo-American

plc (2009-17), president, Royal Academy of

Engineering (2011-14), 78; David Pickard,

director, BBC Proms, general director,

Glyndebourne Opera (2001-15), 60; Chris

Rapley, professor of climate science,

University College London, director, Science

Museum (2007-10), 73; John Schneider,

actor, The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-85), 60;

Alec Stewart, England cricket captain (1998-

99), 57; Dame Vivienne Westwood, fashion

designer, 79; Baroness (Barbara) Young of

Old Scone, chairwoman, Woodland Trust,

chief executive, Diabetes UK (2010-15), 72.

“ ‘Men work together,’ I told him from the

heart, ‘Whether they work together or

apart.’ ” Robert Frost, US poet, The Tuft

of Flowers (1915)

Nature notes

Birthdays today

On this day

The last word

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