28 1GM Tuesday July 21 2020 | the times
Comment
Down with
Colston...
and with
woke artists
O
n balance, I think I would
have pulled the statue of
Edward Colston down,
too, if I had known what
a bad egg he was.
Although perhaps not, if I’d known
how bad it is for middle-aged white
men to try to take control of a
conversation that isn’t about them.
But what I think I can be pretty sure
I would not have done is make my
own sculpture of a black woman
protester, as Marc Quinn did last
week, and stick it up where Colston
used to be.
The reason I would not have done
this is partly because even I can see
that a middle-aged white man
making statues of black women and
sticking them up in public places for
purposes of virtue-signalling and
self-promotion is poor form, and
partly because if I tried to make a
life-sized sculpture of a young black
woman, or anyone else, it would
UK must keep out
Hongkongers who
do Beijing’s bidding
Mark Kwan
T
he British government’s
offer of a new life to up to
three million Hongkongers
who are eligible for British
National (Overseas)
passports was welcome news, but can
we be sure that all of those who might
take up the offer believe in freedom
for the city they are leaving behind?
Ordinary Hongkongers like me are
painfully aware that Carrie Lam, our
chief executive, whom Lord Patten of
Barnes, the former governor, has
called a “lamentable and quisling
figure”, has family members who hold
British passports. And not just her.
Many of our top government officials,
who have so diligently brought
misery to Hong Kong on Beijing’s
behalf, have relatives and property in
the UK or elsewhere. Among them,
both Paul Chan, secretary of finance,
and John Lee, secretary of security,
have relatives in Britain; Teresa
Cheng, secretary of justice, has family
in Canada and Kevin Yeung,
secretary of education, in Australia.
Digging down the rabbit hole,
many members of Hong Kong’s
brutal police force are BNO or even
British passport holders as a result of
their colonial ties. It’s easy to
envisage a worst-case scenario:
citizens flee a dying city after a year-
long battle for freedom, only to find
themselves living next door to their
oppressors in their new home.
Worse, these oppressors may
continue to do the bidding of Beijing
or harass their fellow Hongkongers,
whether under instructions or not.
President Xi’s vast United Front
Work Department network has long
been engaged in a campaign of
subversion using members of the
Chinese diaspora and pro-China
corporations. The long-honed arts of
intimidation, disinformation,
espionage and suppression will
continue to be exercised in the
pursuit of dissidents under the
national security law.
Even if Beijing loyalists chose to
live their lives anonymously, their
presence would be a gross injustice
for those who have witnessed all the
structural violence and brutality in
Hong Kong.
These concerns have been
discussed in Australia and it is in
Britain’s interests that the Home
Office should vigilantly vet each
BNO entrant and returning citizen,
to protect British institutions and the
safety of those moving to start a new
life. Vetting isn’t difficult: simply dig
through past deeds, jobs, affiliations
and statements and we’ll have a good
understanding of who they are.
For the sake of the thousands of
genuine BNO entrants that are
talented and hardworking but
vulnerable to China’s grasp, Britain
must stop those who have played
a part in Hong Kong’s tragedy at
the doorstep.Mark Kwan (not his real name) is a
democracy campaigner in Hong KongPublic education, rather than compulsory inoculation, is the way to defeat epidemic irrationality
Anti-vaxxers threaten the Covid fightback
Tourists’ cool welcome
O
nce I’d lost the Coren family
fortune in this way (and also
on the fail-to-grab-a-toy-you-
don’t-want-anyway-with-a-crane-
that-has-no-purchase-at-all
machine), I took the kids for (frozen)
fish and (ghastly soggy) chips on the
front, for several hundred pounds.
“How’s it been, having no tourists all
summer?” I asked the whey-faced
local behind the fryer, in a
sympathetic tone. “Bloody lovely,”
she said. “Like winter, except sunny.”Walk on the wild side
‘D
octors told to prescribe walks
in the country,” ran a
headline yesterday about
plans to boost patients’ physical and
mental health and ease the burden
on the NHS.
This sounds a fine plan. But if you
don’t fancy waiting ages for an
appointment and then having to
answer a load of intrusive questions
from your GP, I know a geezer who
knows a geezer, up the Boston Arms
in Tufnell Park, who can get you as
many walks in the country as you
like for the right price, without a
prescription, no questions asked.
It’s all front-row gear — nature
rambles, wild swimming, park runs,
you name it — just make sure you
have the exact cash and don’t try
anything funny.healing properties. Many studies
have shown there’s no evidence that
homeopathic remedies have any
therapeutic effect. In 2010 the
Commons science and technology
committee said that homeopathic
remedies performed no better than
placebos, and that the principles on
which homeopathy was based were
“scientifically implausible”.
Homeopathy and vaccine
resistance are linked, with some
homeopaths telling parents not to get
their children vaccinated. In America
organic food stores have sold
magazines with articles touting
homeopathic therapies as “non-toxic”
alternatives to vaccination. They have
published false claims that the HPV
vaccine causes a number of serious
diseases, that being vaccinated
against flu may increase the risk of
catching it, or that vaccines weren’t
responsible for eradicating polio.
It would be beyond appalling
if so many people refused to be
vaccinated against Covid-19 that
the population at large remained at
risk. So how do we combat such
epidemic irrationality?
Compulsory vaccination would
rightly be viewed as an intolerable
infringement on individual freedom.
Public education campaigns remain
the only viable course.
What’s going on below the surface,
though, is nothing less than the
repudiation of reason and evidence
based on a decades-long revulsion
against progress and modernity.
Public health officials seeking to
persuade everyone to trust scientists
and the state and get vaccinated
may find they have their work cut
out to do so.about that issue were over the
possible ill-effects of combining three
vaccines in one shot; indeed,
campaigners wanted a single measles
vaccine to be made available.
It’s fatuous to say that concern
over this one vaccine has driven a
global paranoia about vaccination in
general. It has surely played a role,
but more and more parents are
refusing to vaccinate their children
against a wide range of childhood
diseases, including diphtheria,
tetanus and whooping cough.
So how did the world get into this
situation? One reason is a rising
libertarian resistance to any move by
the state requiring individuals to do
anything. This was demonstrated at
the weekend’s protests in London
against the wearing of masks, with
some demonstrators announcing
their hostility to vaccination too.
At a deeper level is the attitude
that has been growing for the past
half-century: a belief in the innate
goodness of the natural world and a
deep suspicion of how mankind
interferes with it through science or
technology. This is behind the
popularity of organic food, based on
the belief that fertilisers or pesticides
are harmful to health. The same
certainty lies behind opposition to
genetically modified crops. It also
involves hostility to “big pharma”,
with the belief that companies
subject unsuspecting populations to
poisons masquerading as medicines
in order to make vast fortunes.
Even more significant, perhaps, is
the rise in popularity of homeopathic
treatments, based on the unscientific
notion that a diluted version of a
substance that causes illness hasM
ight the end of this
pandemic nightmare
now be in sight?
Preliminary results
published yesterday
from early trials of a Covid-19
vaccine being developed by Oxford
University suggest that it safely
triggers an immune response.
Other research teams around the
world are racing to develop a vaccine
against the virus. The government
has signed deals for 30 million doses
of one being developed in Germany
and a further 60 million doses of
another being created in France.
Yesterday Kate Bingham, head of
the government’s vaccine task force,
said there was a possibility of Covid
vaccinations by the end of the year.
This may be the only way to return to
normal life. Yet there are suggestions
that an alarming number of people
would refuse to be inoculated.
According to a recent survey,
14 per cent of people say they would
be unwilling to be vaccinated and a
further 13 per cent say they don’t
know if they would refuse or not.
This is part of a global movement
against vaccination identified by the
World Health Organisation (WHO)
last year as one of the top ten threats
to global health.
This is astonishing. Vaccination
has enabled one of the greatest
global advances in public health. It is
estimated to prevent two to three
million deaths a year.
So what is the reason for this
anti-vaccination hesitancy? The
WHO’s vaccines advisory group
has identified complacency,
inconvenience in accessing vaccines
and lack of confidence in safety.
Certainly social media is overrun by
“anti-vax” campaigns. Some blame
this on the enormous controversy
that blew up in 1998 over the MMR
jab, after it was claimed that this
triple vaccine had harmed the health
of some children.
Because of that storm I have been
accused of being anti-vaccination.
This is ridiculous. I have always been
strongly in favour of safe and
properly tested vaccination and, like
many others, I am hoping against
hope that a vaccine can be developedagainst Covid-19. The false claim
that I oppose vaccination developed
from unfounded allegations that
I helped cause the MMR crisis.
This was because of my analysis
of the evidence and my concern
at the treatment of the doctor at
the heart of the row, Andrew
Wakefield, who was later struck off
the medical register.
Yet I didn’t write a word about the
vaccine until five years after
Wakefield first reported parental
concerns. In any event, anxietiesSome homeopaths tell
parents not to get their
children vaccinated
probably come out looking like a
comedy potato off That’s Life, and I
would find myself in a world of
political pain.
But what I absolutely, positively,
definitely know I would not have
done, if I lived a hundred lifetimes, is
make a statue of a young black
woman and stick it up in a public
place after the black mayor of that
place, Marvin Rees, had
specifically asked me not
to because of the racial
tensions he feared it
would stir up.
But that’s what Quinn
did, we learnt yesterday,
proving once again that all
artists are total morons. If
the world would only
get rid of art
altogether, how much
simpler and kinder
life would be.Under-cooked
A
ccording to
yesterday’s
papers, nearly a
quarter of restaurants
eligible to offer half-
price meals under the
government’s Eat Out
to Help Out scheme
have registered to take
part, including All Bar
One, Browns, Burger
King, Frankie &Benny’s, Harvester, Nando’s, Pizza
Hut and Toby Carvery. It is hoped
that places serving actual food will
soon follow suit.Shove over, kids
W
e took the kids to the
seaside last week and after
playing on the beach for
several whole minutes, bowed to the
relentless pressure and headed for
the amusement arcade.
“Whatever you do with your
money,” I said, handing them each a
paper cup of fifty 2p pieces, “do
not put it in those coin push
machines — they are a total scam
and always look as if they are
about to fall over the ledge,
but never actually do,”
then, when they
ignored me, spent
the rest of the
afternoon
hovering at
their
shoulders
going, “no,
no, you have
to roll two at
the same time
but only when
the tray is on the
way out, not the
way in, and then,
just when it... here give
me some of those, I’ll
show you.. .”Giles Coren Notebook
Melanie
Phillips@melanielatest
otn
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