the times | Monday June 29 2020 2GM 25
Leading articles
the average wage has not grown, will be strong.
The main focus of Mr Johnson’s manifesto for the
rest of this term in government will therefore be
economic. In 2010 the coalition government
response to a vast deficit in the public finances was
austerity. Mr Johnson is expected to announce
that he will take a different approach, offering a
guarantee of opportunity for the young, a full
panoply of infrastructure projects with funding
attached, and plans for hospital and prison building.
There will also be a significant programme of
school building, something that was cancelled
during David Cameron’s years as prime minister.
The desire to keep spending high while not
adding too rapidly to debt must mean that tax rises
are on the horizon. There is a big decision pending
for the chancellor on where the burden of this
taxation should fall. Hike taxes too hard on the
wealthy, or on business, and the traditional Tory
constituency will cry foul. Yet tax rises that fall
universally will hurt poorer voters dispropor-
tionately. Perhaps the toughest decision of all will
be how to treat elderly people in the tax and spend
decisions to come. The country is struggling to
afford the generosity George Osborne lavished on
pensioners.
There are other neglected areas of policy onwhich it would be good to hear from Mr Johnson.
He is expected to unveil thoughts on combating
obesity. It is past time that Britain had a viable
policy on social care and another for the 50 per
cent of school pupils that will not go on to higher
education. And then there is the status of the
Brexit negotiations. Covid-19 has pushed Brexit a
long way down the headlines but the collapse of
talks would still be a really bad outcome, for both
Britain and the EU.
All of these questions count rather more, in fact,
than the much-trailed desire to reform the civil
service, which was the subject of Michael Gove’s
lecture to the Ditchley Foundation. Britain remains
the most centralised country in Europe and Mr
Gove’s stress on devolution is therefore welcome.
With plenty of local authorities on the verge of
bankruptcy, though, it will take more than warm
words to rectify that.
There is no escaping that this is going to be a
tough time to govern. No administration ever
escapes a recession untarnished. Yet the
government has a healthy majority and time in
which to show it has a programme that can
relaunch a nation after the shock of a pandemic.
The bolder the prime minister can be and the
quicker he can act, the better.— a strict lockdown imposed in March has kept
deaths to 1,400 — the Polish economy is heading
into recession.
The PiS won last October’s parliamentary
election largely on the back of generous social
benefits, including a lowering of the retirement
age. Such largesse may now have to be postponed.
As a consequence, Mr Duda has switched his
campaign message to the culture war. In an obvious
echo of the electioneering vocabulary of his
populist ally Viktor Orban in Hungary, the presi-
dent has stressed family values and criticism of the
European Union. On June 10 Mr Duda signed a
“family charter” of proposals, including pledges to
prevent gay couples from marrying or adopting
children. This has been an election issue, with the
president saying that traditional lifestyles are
being undermined by bankers and urban elites.
The election also has a European dimension.
The EU executive has warned the PiS, with
respect to its charter, that, as a member of the EU,
it has a duty to guarantee non-discrimination as a
core value. The PiS has also clashed recently with
the EU over judicial reforms, which, the party’scritics insist, have the effect of politicising the
judiciary. There is also clear evidence of state
control over free media. Polish state television has
become a more partisan mouthpiece than a public
service broadcaster should ever be. A media
monitoring service recently found that 97 per cent
of stories covering Mr Duda were positive, while
87 per cent of those on his principal challenger
were negative. Wild conspiracy theories, about
control by foreign elites, are now often aired.
This a dangerous path. Poland, situated
between Germany and Italy, was the victim of
both of the appalling totalitarian ideologies of the
20th century, communism and fascism. Its
experiment with democracy has been hard-won
and remains young and fragile. It cannot afford a
president who has compared equality for gay
people to communism. The Polish president has
the power of veto, so this is an election that really
counts. Mr Trzaskowski’s election slogan has been
“enough is enough”. His Civic Coalition alliance
would require the opposition parties to rally to his
cause in a run-off but the future of Poland as a fully
democratic nation would be served by it.expressed views that are impermissible today.
Wilson’s name is going to be removed from the
Princeton school of public policy because of his
unreconstructed Southern views on segregation
and because, although he was sympathetic to
Catholic and Jewish entry, Wilson acted to bar
black students from Princeton.
These cases are difficult because they require us
to weigh moral rights against these clear moral
wrongs. The lower tariffs and federal income tax,
the creation of a central banking system and
action to break up excessively powerful firms —
all achievements of Wilson as president of thenation — have to be reckoned in the balance when
assessing his record in public policy.
This is not Wilson’s first rejection. He was
instrumental in writing the idea of the League of
Nations into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 but, to
his lasting regret, was always unable to persuade
the Senate to permit the United States to join.
Like most political careers, Wilson’s is mixed.
The best way to deal with complexity of this sort
is not to erase it, along with the names that stand
for it. It is to let the names stand as a reminder that
even men capable of greatness were also capable
of cruelty and stupidity.Relaunch of a Nation
The task of rebuilding the economy after the pandemic is a tough one.
The prime minister should set out a bold programme and act quickly
When Boris Johnson won the job of prime
minister he must have assumed that he would go
down as the man who would get Brexit done. His
election victory last year will have confirmed that
understandable impression. Tomorrow he will
give a speech that will show how much his world
has shifted. He will not even be the post-Brexit
prime minister. He will be, if he can manage it, the
post-Covid prime minister.
Mr Johnson faces two very substantial obstacles.
The first is that deaths from Covid-19 have risen
to more than 43,000, sadly a far greater number
than was expected at the start of the outbreak.
The handling of coronavirus will not go away
as a political question. In due course there will
be an inquiry and a verdict on Mr Johnson’s
government. It is not likely to be complimentary.
Perhaps more important even than that though,
from a political point of view, will be the economic
aftermath of the virus. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak,
responded with alacrity and imagination to the
closure of most of the economy but that will not
spare him paying the bill when it comes in. The
early indications are that job losses will be more
severe than at any time since the industrial
restructuring of the 1980s. The pressure on
household income, after a decade already in whichYoung Democracy
The Polish presidential election pits a populist against a liberal democrat
The first national election in Europe since the
pandemic struck took place in Poland yesterday.
The campaign has been a reminder that some
profound political questions were unresolved prior
to coronavirus and will need to be settled once it is
defeated. In Poland’s presidential battle, Andrzej
Duda, the incumbent, and Rafal Trzaskowski, the
mayor of Warsaw, will be the two candidates in the
final round. This will be a contest between an open
and a closed view of the country’s future.
President Duda has just been the first visitor to
the United States since lockdown. He basked in the
praise of President Trump and in the latter’s pro-
mise that American troops would be redeployed
from Germany to Poland. In a tight election, in a
country which is strongly pro-American, this could
be an important factor. Mr Duda, an ally and
former member of the ruling nationalist Law and
Justice Party (PiS), did have a commanding lead in
the opinion polls and hoped to hold the election in
May, when the economy was growing at 5 per cent
a year. Unfortunately for him, the coronavirus
intervened and, although Poland has been praised
by the World Health Organisation for its responseA Complex President
It would be better to debate Woodrow Wilson’s views on race than to erase them
Woodrow Wilson is not just any old associate
of Princeton University. After graduating from
the university, Wilson returned, to the chair of
jurisprudence and political economy, and then, in
1902, became the president of the university. To
Princeton this probably matters more than the
other distinguished job Wilson went on to hold,
namely the president of the United States of
America from 1913-21.
Yet Wilson has now become the latest victim of
the trend, after the horrific death of George Floyd
at the hands of the Minneapolis police, to erase
the public presence of those who, in the past,UK: Air travel quarantine measures will be
reviewed; all schools in Wales reopen; most
shops reopen in Scotland; the British Book
Awards are held.
The most noticeable
butterfly out in the
fields now,
especially out over
the hay in the
sunshine, is the
meadow brown
butterfly. In some places they rise in swarms
from under one’s feet. The males, which are
the first to show themselves, are a chocolate
brown colour. The females, which will soon
dominate the fields, are brighter. They have
orange splashes on their forewings. They
close their wings when they are feeding,
revealing a bright eyespot on the underside.
They frequent the fading clover and the
widespread, opening thistles. derwent may
In 1871 the Trade Union Act legalised trade
unions; in 1905 motoring enthusiasts met in
London to form the Automobile Association;
in 1960 the BBC opened and broadcast
from the first purpose-built centre for TV
production, Television Centre at White City
near Shepherd’s Bush, west London.
Katherine Jenkins,
pictured, mezzo-soprano,
presenter, Songs of
Praise, 40; Micky Arison,
chairman, cruise
operator Carnival
Corporation, 71; Adrian
Belton, chairman,
Defence Science and Technology
Laboratory, 64; Charlotte Bingham, novelist
and screenwriter, 78; Gary Busey, actor, The
Buddy Holly Story (1978), Point Break (1991),
76; John Dawes, rugby union player, Wales
(1964-71), and coach, Wales (1974-79), 80;
Amanda Donohoe, actress, Castaway (1986),
The Madness of King George (1994), 58;
Charlie Ewels, rugby union player, Bath and
England, 25; Baroness (Sally) Greengross,
president and chief executive, International
Longevity Centre UK, 85; Carl Hester,
dressage rider, Olympic gold medallist
(2012), 53; Sir George Howarth, Labour MP
for Knowsley, 71; Lord (Brian) Hutton, lord
of appeal in ordinary (1997-2004), 89; Fran
Kirby, footballer, Chelsea and England
women’s football teams, 27; Véronique
Laury, chief executive, Kingfisher retail
group (2015-19), 55; Seamus McGarvey,
cinematographer, Atonement (2007), Anna
Karenina (2012), 53; Anthea McIntyre,
Conservative MEP for the West Midlands
(2011-Jan 2020), vice-chairwoman of the
Conservative Party (2016-18), 66; Michael
McIntyre, yachtsman, Olympic gold
medallist (1988), 64; Eric Miska, Herchel
Smith professor of molecular genetics,
University of Cambridge, 49; Anne-Sophie
Mutter, violinist, 57; Giorgio Napolitano,
president of Italy (2006-15), 95; Sir Peter
Osborne, co-founder (1967), Osborne &
Little, 77; Ian Paice, drummer, Deep Purple,
72; Baroness (Usha) Prashar, deputy
chairwoman of trustees, British Council
(2012-18), 72; Mark Radcliffe, DJ and BBC
Radio 2 presenter, 62; Nicole Scherzinger,
pop singer, the Pussycat Dolls (2003-10), 42;
Marcus Wareing, chef and restaurateur, 50;
Matthew Weiner, writer and producer,
creator of Mad Men (2007-15), 55.
“I always tell young swimmers: ‘Practise things
until you can’t get them wrong. Not until you
get them right.’ There’s a big difference.”
Lewis Pugh, pioneer swimmer, UN patron
of the oceans, on his website (2014)
Nature notes
Birthdays today
On this day
The last word
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