The Week UK - 14.03.2020

Best articles: Britain NEWS^15

14 March 2020 THE WEEK

If you’re brown

I’m afraid you

can’t be blue

Nick Cohen

The Observer

Whydosomeprogressiveshavesuchaproblem with progress,

asks Nick Cohen. You’d have thought all opponentsofracism or

homophobia would be happy to see so many politicians of South

Asianheritage become leading lights in Torypolitics, and equally

happy to see Pete Buttigieg run as the first openly gay major candi-

datefortheWhite House.Butno: for many progressives, this isn’t

awelcomesignthattimes have movedon; it’sasignoftreachery.

ThosepoliticiansofAsian descent have somehowbetrayed their

ethnicity byjoining the Tories. “They’re ‘coconuts’–brownon

the outside, whiteon theinside.” Buttigieg,likewise, hasbetrayed

hissexuality becausehehappenstobemarriedand supports

“establishment politics”. Tobe aproper gayperson,or member

of an ethnic minority,it seemsyoumust commityourselftoa

left-wingprogrammeandadhere toallits dogmas,oryou’velet

the sidedown.One reasontheLeftiscurrentlyfaringsobadlyis

that it seems to feel it“owns” minorities.“Asmorality,it is an

affront to individual liberty.Asstrategy, it is worse thanuseless.”

Isn’t Flybe’s

fall acause

for rejoicing?

DominicLawson

TheSundayTimes

If politiciansactuallymeant what they saidabout climatechange,

saysDominicLawson,they’d becelebratingthedeathofFlybe

(see page 49). Afterall,theyintroducedair passenger dutywith

the express aimofdiscouragingair travel;and as Flybewasa

domestic airline,its former passengers may now have to take the

train. Thatis awin, surely, for the environment.Butofcourseon

this subject, the rhetoric and actions of politicians are strangers to

each other. Look at Rebecca Long-Bailey, architect of Labour’s

“greenindustrial revolution”: she’s now demanding ministers use

all available fiscal meansto keepFlybeinbusiness. Backin2000,

wesawthe same double standardappliedtothe fuelprice escala-

tor (introduced by the Tories in 1993)whichraised tax onpetrol

aheadof theinflationrate. Itonly tooklorry drivers blockading

oilrefineries forall parties,the “green” Lib Demsincluded, to call

forafuel duty cap.Butwevoters canmatch the politiciansfor

hypocrisy. We bangonabout the need foractiononclimate

change, yetcomplainassoonasany actionimpactsour lives.

Adeath that

should shame a

civilised nation

Afua Hirsch

The Guardian

If anation’shumanity is gauged by theway it detainsanddeports

immigrants,says Afua Hirsch,then there’snothingveryhumane

about today’s Britain. Lastweek, an inquest washeldinto thedeath

of PrinceKwabenaFosu, a31-year-old Ghanaian whoentered the

UK in 2012 onabusinessvisa(subsequentlyrevoked).Afew

months laterhewas arrested while walking naked onaroadin

Northamptonshire.Clearlyhe was undergoingapsychiatric crisis,

but instead of beingsectioned,hewas takentoHarmondsworth

immigrationremoval centre, where he layontheconcrete floor of

an isolationcellfor sixdays, naked, beforedyingofhypothermia

andmalnourishment.Theinquest concludedthat procedures to

protect vulnerabledetainees were “grossly ineffective”.Alas, his

is farfroman isolatedcase.Adamning reviewof theUK’s

deportationcentres, most runbyprivatecompanies, foundthat

detaineeswith mental healthproblems were beingplacedinhighly

unsuitable segregation facilities. It costs more than £34,000 per

detainee to lock people up in such centres, yet they haveareally

poorrecordatremoving themfromthe UK.That’s one good

reasontodemand radical reform.Abetter onestill is PrinceFosu.

Our failure

to tackle a

biblical plague

Jenni Russell

The Times

AnAustraliannewspaper

helpeditsreadersdealwith

thefalloutfromcoronavirus

–byprintingextrapagesfor

“toiletpaper”.TheNTNews

dailytabloidaddedaneight-

pageinserttoaneditionlast

weekasAustralians,fearful

ofshortages,stockedupon

looroll.“Weunderstandthe

needsofourreaders,”said

editorMattWilliams,who

addedthatthepapersold

wellandwas“certainlynot

acrappyedition”.

Alargefirebrokeoutin

Bramham,nearLeeds,on

Saturdayafterapig

swallowedapedometer.The

device–usedtoprovethat

thepigsarefreerange–

waseaten,thenexcreted;its

batteryreactedwiththepig’s

excrementanddryhayinthe

pigpen.NorthYorkshirefire

andrescueservicewascalled

toputoutthe75-square-

metreblaze.Itsaidthatit

hadsuccessfullymanagedto

“savethebacon”.

AFrenchchocolatier has

designedanEaster eggto

looklike theCovid-

coronavirus.Jean-François

Précreated thetreat after

seeinga3D representationof

the virus,and hassinc esold

dozenstoc ustomers. “It

makes them smile inthese

difficult times,” he said.

Villagers in Italy enjoyed a

“miracle” as water from

their taps turned into wine.

Residents of Settecani, near

Bologna, found the sparkling

red wine Lambrusco pouring

from their taps last week

afteramix-u patalocal

winery, which is connected

to the public water supply.

The valve malfunction meant

that instead of water being

piped into the plant, wine

flowed out. “People are

talking about it as ‘the

miracle of Settecani’”, said

aspokesman for the winery.

ITMUSTBETRUE...

Ireaditinthetabloids

We seemtobelivinginOld Testamenttimes,says Jenni Russell.

We’ve hadfires,floods andthethreat of global pestilence; now

comereports ofaplag ue of locusts. Swarms are spreading across

eastAfricaonascalenot seeninliving memory,annihilating

crops andpastureland.Asquare kilometre oflocusts eats enough

foodfor 35,000people every day, and someswarms arethe size

of cities.The largestthisyear was40km wide and60kmlong.

And thelocusts aremultiplying all the time:numbers could

increase 400-fold by June.Theonly solutionis aerial spraying

with pesticide,backed by trained spray teams on the ground.

ButKenya, Ethiopia andothercountriesare gettingonlya

fraction of theforeign aidtheyneedto payfor theequipment.

It’salltooreminiscent of Africa’s last locust outbreak 15 years

ago,when an originalrequestfor$1m escalated to $10m, then

$100m,astargets were missedandthe devastationgrew. It cost

$500m tobring thatoutbreakundercontrol.The price of delayed

actionnow“willbepoverty, hunger andagony formillions”.