The Times - UK (2020-07-28)

24 1GM Tuesday July 28 2020 | the times

Comment

The pain in

Spain falls

mainly on

the planes

H

ave you just had your

long-awaited holiday in

Spain cancelled? Or,

worse, are you stuck there,

gutted because you’re

going to be forced into quarantine on

your return, like a spittle-flecked

Portuguese dog in the 1970s? Are

you one of the tens of thousands of

Britons who won’t be eligible for sick

pay during your personal lockdown

hell? Are you even now camping at

the airport with your weeping family,

waiting for a flight home after only

two days of holiday because you can’t

afford the extra fortnight off work?

Ha! Serves you right. You have

nothing to blame the government

for. There is no “confusion”, there is

no “inconsistency”. They have done

the right thing. This was always

going to happen. And you are an

idiot. I hope the dreamily filtered

Instagram photos you took last week

of your tedious glass of local rosé,

Dark dramas are

more cheering than

schlocky romcoms

Libby Purves

R

ussians can go to the

cinema again, as long as

they can face something

“light hearted and simple”.

The culture minister Olga

Lyubimova met film distributors and

ruled that Russians are “tired of

sitting at home and may not be

ready for heavy dramas right now”.

Those can wait until winter: now

people need “something simple, date

movies”. Surfing around recent

Russian cinema posters online, that

will mean Have Fun, Vasya! or Lady

with the Parrot.

Ms Lyubimova is a wild card on

the international cultural scene. She

“can’t stand” going to exhibitions,

museums, opera or ballet, swerved

the Louvre and “wasted her time” at

the British Museum and National

Gallery. She has the pedigree: her

grandfather was a famous actor, her

father actor-president of a theatre

arts school, and she was a TV

producer. But her most notable trip

into self-expression is being

photographed in a T-shirt with the

slogan “Who are you? What do you

want? I don’t know you. F*** Off!”.

Which for some reason made me

rather take to her. Maybe because

when our own culture ministers

haven’t been in a theatre for years

they always flannel, pretend, and

embarrass themselves. With Olga

you know where you are.

Hers is a dubious policy, though.

Having been double-deprived of

shows for eight months (my cancer

treatment abutted with the start of

lockdown) I can tell you that the

“light-hearted and simple” rapidly

stops working after innumerable

hair-flicking incarnations of Aniston,

Zellweger and Zeta-Jones. Lusting for

a darker edge I moved on to thrillers,

box-set epics about the miserable

lives of divorce lawyers or the super-

rich and thence to Bring up the Bodies.

Even streamed theatre wasn’t gritty

enough (where’s the Ibsen, eh?).

Anyway, there’s something creepy

about a Russian minister enforcing

schlocky romance with the word

“simple”. Stalin demanded “simple

revolutionary melodies” and

probably wrote the article in Pravda

condemning Shostakovich’s Macbeth

opera for not being “music the

common working man could

understand and take pride in”. If I

were Russian I would be insulted by

Lyubimova’s patronising pap: theirs

after all is the land of Tolstoyan

epics, Gogol grotesques, and

Chekhov’s Sonia unforgettably

comforting poor Uncle Vanya with:

“We shall live through the long

procession of days before us and

through the long evenings; we shall

patiently bear the trials that fate

imposes on us... beyond the grave,

we shall say that our life was

bitter, and God will have pity on us.”

In my experience that’s actually

just the stuff to cheer you up as

you dry your eyes and go on your

way whistling merrily.

Tories have proved inept at finding a middle way between paternalism and libertarianism

This wobbling over obesity has been farcical

thermal-imaging cameras are an

unreliable way of screening for the

virus. “They are no more than a

visible tool designed to build people’s

confidence in public places and

airports,” says Ashley Woodcock of

Manchester University. Not to

mention, of course, a great way to

have a giggle at people’s naked

bodies through their clothes.

(Whaaaat? Don’t blame me. Prof

Woodcock is the one who said

“visible tool”.)

Back to school

S

chools are writing to parents to

say that when they reopen in

September, they will not be able

to offer “wrap-around” care such as

after-school clubs because, whinge,

whinge, coronavirus, whinge,

whinge... Which makes them

essentially useless to people (mostly

women, of course) who want to

go back to work. Childcare until

3.30pm is no use at all for people

with jobs. Any fool can teach a child

(as we all learnt in lockdown), but

all-day childcare is fundamental to

our economic and mental health.

So I may just remind the school

administrators, their stupid unions

and the dithering government,

that no teacher has contracted

Covid-19 from a pupil in a school

anywhere in the world. Ever.

Not one. Anywhere.

#openthedamnschools

require large companies to publish

figures about their gender pay gap,

provide free childcare for all three

and four-year-olds, ban legal highs,

raise the minimum wage and ban the

use of wild animals in circuses. The

Tories subsequently brought in other

policies that had figured only in

Labour’s manifesto, such as raising

taxes on empty properties and

scrapping tax-credit cuts.

The left is always on the side of

state intervention even when pushing

libertarian social policies. This has

led them to become oppressive in

trying to change people’s attitudes

and behaviour to conform on

controversial cultural issues, such

as egalitarianism or identity politics,

as the route to an idealised society.

The Conservatives, however, allowed

themselves to become divided

between those who espouse the

free-market approach, privileging

selfishness over social responsibility,

and a mushy “One Nation” Toryism

largely indistinguishable from

Labour policies.

Since Johnson’s illness, he is

reported to have become much more

sympathetic to a bigger role for the

state. But the old “state v market”

dichotomy is now unhelpful. There is

a need for a new type of politics that

reconciles freedom and community

without falling into the traps laid on

either side.

Solidarity, under which people are

encouraged to act freely to co-

operate for the common good, might

be preferred to the egalitarianism

and libertarianism that have melded

both Labour and Conservatives into

the push-me-pull-you of political

pantomime.

has ricocheted back and forth to an

extraordinary degree. In 2015, after

the NHS had expressed concern that

obesity was a threat to child health,

the Labour Party said it would ban

junk food TV ads before the 9pm

watershed. Jeremy Hunt, who was

then the health secretary, objected

that “banning and legislation” were

“not always the answer” and that

“backing families to make better

choices brings lasting change”.

Before the general election that

May there were briefings that

David Cameron wanted to unveil an

ambitious obesity strategy including

the watershed junk food advert ban

and restrictions on supermarket

promotions. In 2016 Hunt

announced that childhood obesity

was a “national emergency” and

started drawing up a strategy

including restrictions on adverts for

junk food and its display in

supermarkets. Later the same year

Theresa May cut these and other

measures from her government’s

childhood obesity strategy before it

was published. Then, in 2018, she

effectively reinstated Cameron’s

original plan. This got nowhere

before making yet another return

appearance this week.

This farcical indecision is almost

certainly because the Tories are torn

between impulses towards

paternalism and libertarianism,

sometimes within the same

politician. Under both Cameron and

May, terror that the Conservatives

might be viewed as the “nasty party”

created some striking similarities

between paternalistic Tory and

Labour policies. In 2015 both parties

promised in their manifestos to

F

or the road to Damascus,

read the road to Corona. Last

week the government

announced that TV adverts

for “junk foods” high in fat,

sugar or salt would be banned before

the 9pm watershed.

Yesterday it unveiled its “Better

Health” campaign calling on the

public to embrace a healthy lifestyle.

Under its proposals, GPs will

prescribe cycling and gym classes,

patients will be given access to

weight loss apps, and shops will be

banned from placing junk foods near

store entrances and tills.

The reason for all this is Boris

Johnson’s conviction that being

overweight was the reason he nearly

died of Covid-19, and that obesity is a

significant factor in the virus’s toll of

death or serious illness.

There’s no reason to think this

conclusion is wrong. But attempts to

help tackle the virus by curbing

obesity has got the libertarian right

jumping up and down shouting

“nanny state”. They believe it’s wrong

for the state to tell people what to eat

or how to behave. It’s often the same

people who resist wearing masks and

oppose other restrictions aimed at

curbing the spread of the virus.

Defending personal liberty is an

admirable trait. And measures taken

by the government that restrict it for

the greater good will always be

contested. The line between what is

socially responsible and oppressive

can sometimes be a fine one.

Seeking to curb obesity to stifle

the virus, however, seems only

prudent. Obesity has an impact on

everyone through the pressure it

puts on the NHS. And advice on

exercise or diet hardly fits the

definition of a police state.

Yet other proposals within the

government package arguably cross

that fine line. There’s a difference

between advice and instruction.

Telling shops where they are

permitted to display junk food will

also inevitably call into question

what junk food actually is.

Over the years, expert advice

itself has veered all over the place,

telling us one minute that fats or

carbs will kill us and the next that

they pose no significant danger to

health. In any event, advertising

bans probably have minimal impact

on obesity levels.

Before the virus arrived, Johnson

was among those railing against the

“nanny state”. Last year he halted a

plan for a levy on sugary milkshakes

because he doubted that further

“stealth sin taxes” were successful in

changing behaviour and thought

they disproportionately affected

poorer consumers.

In fact, policy on tackling obesity

Encourage people to

act freely to co-operate

for the common good

tilted rakishly against the background

of the turquoise Med, and posted for

no other reason than to make those

of us who opted to stay home feel

left out, come back to haunt you in

your incarcerated nightmares.

I called this months ago. Couldn’t

face the uncertainty of not knowing

whether a foreign holiday would be

possible so bit the bullet and booked

a couple of fairly prosaic weeks in

English seaside rentals. Nothing to

post on social, no suntan guarantee,

no gaudy bragging rights; mostly

rain, arcade games, soggy chips

and pebble beaches. But at

least the first week happened

and the second almost

certainly will too.

Yes, when friends of mine

began to brag about the cheap

packages they’d snaffled up

in Greece and Tenerife I

did start to feel a bit

stupid. And, yes, the

FOMO was bad.

But when, in the

darkest days of lockdown,

I said (along with

everyone else) that in

some ways I embraced

the different vision of life

offered by the “new

normal” — the reduced

consumerism, the

appreciation of local

things, the quieter roads,

the emptier skies, the

lower carbon emissions and the

opportunity to change our ways and

maybe save the planet a bit — I

meant it.

You said it too, in the thrill of the

moment. But when the chance of a

cheap flight and a jug of sangria in a

concrete timeshare was waved at

you, you just couldn’t say no. And

now your summer is ruined. And

every timid dad who booked a

mouldy B&B in Rhyl is laughing

himself to sleep at night.

Harsh but fair

A

man in (supposedly)

Covid-free North Korea is

facing execution for having

travelled to South Korea and

returned with the virus. Despite

my harsh words above, even I

am prepared to accept

that this is a severe

penalty to impose on

inconsiderate

holidaymakers.

A simple

amputation

of the hands

and feet

would

suffice.

I spy

A

n expert in

respiratory

diseases

has revealed that

Giles Coren Notebook

Melanie

Phillips

@melanielatest

ips

d

ap

Harsh but fair

man in (suppo

Covid-free Nor

facing executio

travelled to SouthK

returned with the vi

my harsh wordsab

am prepared

that this is

penalty

incon

holi

A

a

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has revealed