the times | Thursday November 26 2020 1GM 33
Leading articles
£280 billion, with another £55 billion earmarked
next year for public services.
Mr Sunak rightly stressed that the costs of inac-
tion would have been higher. Although Britain
faces a sharp rise in unemployment, the OBR esti-
mate of a peak of 2.6 million next summer is lower
than its previous forecast, and the assumed unem-
ployment rate of 7.5 per cent would be a full
percentage point below the levels of the financial
crisis a decade ago. A spending programme of
£2.9 billion to help people back into work makes
more sense than keeping workers in jobs that may
not be viable in the post-pandemic economy. A
levelling-up fund of £4 billion may prove an
effective stimulus for regional regeneration.
It also makes sense to suspend the overseas aid
target of 0.7 per cent of GDP. Britain will still be the
second most generous donor globally when it is re-
duced to 0.5 per cent. Imposing public-sector pay
restraint when private-sector employees are
facing hardship is also sensible.The big question is
how to pay for the surge in borrowing and addi-
tional spending commitments. And while public
debt now exceeds 100 per cent of GDP for the first
time in 60 years, debt servicing costs are low.
When the private sector isn’t investing and house-
holds aren’t spending, there is a ready source offunds for government to borrow. By far the most
important issue in restoring the public finances is
the timing and magnitude of recovery, which will
feed through into higher tax revenues. This is not
the right time to envisage tax rises, lest they choke
off an incipient recovery. Even so, a projected
rise in underlying debt year by year will require
action later.
Mr Sunak also made no mention of Brexit, even
though little over a month remains for Britain to
agree a deal with the European Union. The OBR
projects that if, in the absence of a deal, Britain’s
trading relations default to the terms of the World
Trade Organisation, output would be reduced by
2 per cent initially and then by a further 1.5 per
cent. Clearly that is an undesirable outcome and
new barriers to cross-border trade and investment
would constrain Britain’s recovery.
But overall the government has committed
itself to eye-watering amounts of state spending
into the future and all Labour can do is demand yet
more spending. The challenge is not to get hooked
on pump-priming and establish the conditions in
which private enterprise can dig the country out of
three lost years for the economy. Mr Sunak’s
handling of the crisis has so far been generally
surefooted, but the real tests are yet to come.But how? The 35 British women held in the
camps and nine men imprisoned at Hasakah, in
northeastern Syria, cannot be described as
innocents. Those who have committed crimes
should face justice. Yet the answer is not for
governments to abdicate their responsibilities, be
they to uphold the law or protect blameless child-
ren from a life and early death in legal limbo. To do
so at a time when American patience for footing
security bills is wearing thin would be reckless.
One solution could be a special international
court to try those whose path to Europe is compli-
cated by the prospect of criminal charges. Joe
Biden, the American president-elect, may prove
more amenable to a multilateral settlement of this
kind than President Trump. Attractive though
that might be to ministers who believe any step
towards repatriation undermines their claims of
zero tolerance to jihadism, this idea should be
rejected. British jihadists and their families remain
a British problem, wherever they may reside.
Instead the government should heed appeals
from civilian and military leaders in Washington
to repatriate detainees. If Europe does not bringthem home to face trial, its leaders risk creating a
lost generation of radicalised children. At worst,
those held in such a volatile region may escape, as
750 foreign nationals did last October. One Briton
subsequently absconded to Paris. But even if they
remain incarcerated, every woman and child in
the camps will end up at the heart of the twisted
narrative of victimhood that could yet fuel a
serious resurgence of Isis violence in the years and
decades to come.
Britain should begin the work of deradicalising
the defectors on these shores, as the Home Office
recommends, and saving their children. Claims
that it is simply too dangerous for officials to
repatriate citizens from the camps are nonsense.
Neither its coalition partners nor British special
forces have such trouble. Several orphans have
already been rescued, and the numbers concerned
are manageable. Doing so would help to under-
mine the jihadist narrative that this country is the
monster of fundamentalist myth. It will be long
and difficult. But a democracy that respects its
moral and legal duty to its citizens at home and
abroad should do no less.For a ship making use of an ancient technique,
Oceanbird sports a highly futuristic look. Its five
telescopic “wingsails” make it the tallest ship ever
built when fully extended, with more than 100m
separating the top of the mast from the waterline.
With a top speed of ten knots, the same as Alfred
Holt’s then cutting-edge Agamemnon, launched in
1865, Oceanbird will take 12 days rather than the
customary seven to carry its complement of 7,000
cars across the Atlantic.
Most important, its carbon emissions of only
12 tonnes a day will be around a tenth of those of
more conventional ships. Customers on both sidesof the pond will surely judge the extra wait for
their new BMW or Tesla worthwhile.
Shipping was responsible for a shade under 3 per
cent of global man-made greenhouse gas emis-
sions in 2018. Every reduction helps, and if a lot
cleaner means a little slower, so be it. Oceanbird
exemplifies the type of imaginative, profitable
innovation required for the green revolution to
succeed. Progress proceeds apace in clean vehicle
power, energy-efficient building design, town
planning and not least in the revival of barges to
ferry passengers and deliveries on inland water-
ways. It cannot come to fruition soon enough.Paying for the Pandemic
The chancellor’s strategy of letting borrowing rise, while supporting jobs and
healthcare, makes sense. Yet long-term questions on spending and Brexit remain
The coronavirus crisis has inflicted immense
damage on the economy. In his spending review
yesterday Rishi Sunak made no effort to sugar-
coat the costs. He announced that the economy
was set this year for the largest contraction in
output in more than three centuries, while
borrowing will reach the highest level in peace-
time history. His approach is to allow public bor-
rowing to take the strain in the short term, while
seeking savings and committing further funds to
combat the coronavirus and support public
services. There were gaps in the chancellor’s pre-
sentation but broadly the strategy makes sense.
The raw numbers of the downturn are huge.
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility
(OBR) projects that the economy will shrink this
year by 11.3 per cent. The government’s business
support measures have sought to contain the
damage to the corporate sector. Because the shock
of Covid-19 is long lasting, this has raised the costs
to the exchequer and caused scarring to the
economy’s long-term productive capacity.
Borrowing is hence forecast to reach £394 bil-
lion this year, equivalent to 19 per cent of GDP.
Output is not expected to return to pre-crisis
levels until the fourth quarter of 2022. Spending to
combat the crisis this year has amounted toOverdue Process
It is in Britain’s interests to repatriate Isis defectors from Syria’s camps
The squalid camps of al-Hawl and al-Roj in north-
eastern Syria, where malnutrition, sickness and
violence reign, are no place to raise a family. Yet
that is the fate of some 13,500 foreign women and
children aligned with Islamic State, among them
dozens of Britons, who have been trapped since
the terrorist group’s defeat in the region last
March. As we report from al-Hawl today, this is no
solution to the challenges posed by the continued
exile of European defectors. Festering sores tend
to burst, and the West risks a new security and
terror crisis if it does not act.
One attitude is for westerners to say that they
knew what they were doing and deserve their fate.
Yet whatever the circumstances, human misery
on this scale ought to be unconscionable. And to
Isis it is a gift. The conditions make for easy and
emotive propaganda and everyone should recall
that Isis itself emerged from within Iraqi prison
camps. Already British fundraising drives for Isis
advertise al-Hawl as “the cradle of the new cali-
phate”. That alone is proof that they should be dis-
mantled and their European inmates repatriated
to face justice.A Fair Wind
New green transport solutions are drawing inspiration from old technologies
It is more than 170 years since Isambard Kingdom
Brunel’s SS Great Britain became the first iron-
hulled propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic.
It thereby heralded the beginning of the end of the
age of sail-powered ocean travel for commercial
cargo-carrying purposes. Wind power thereafter
became largely the preserve of leisure craft, most
of them inshore vessels. Yet as of 2024, when the
Swedish shipping line Wallenius Marine hopes to
bring its new Oceanbird car carrier into service,
wind as a means of powering bulk ocean-going
trade is due for a comeback. Sometimes, the old
ways, suitably updated, are the best.UK: Government to announce further
details about the coronavirus tier system,
including designations for each region of
England effective from December 2.
The puss moth
leads three very
different lives. In
summer it is a fluffy
white-grey moth
that looks like a
flying scrap of cat
fur. Eggs laid by this adult become one of
the most outlandish-looking of all
caterpillars — markings on its fat, lurid
green body make it seem to have a savage
pair of jaws and glaring eyes. Two fake
stingers rise threateningly from the tail. On
sensing a change in light created by an
approaching bird or human, the caterpillar
puffs itself up menacingly. This theatrical
trickster spends winter disguised as a
knobble on a willow branch, safe in a hard
cocoon constructed out of chewed bark.
jonathan tulloch
In 1922 the archaeologist Howard Carter and
his financial backer Lord Carnarvon first
glimpsed the interior of Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Lia Williams, pictured,
actress, The Crown
(2016-17), 56; Agnès B,
fashion designer, 79;
Natasha Bedingfield,
singer-songwriter,
Unicorn (2016), 39;
Hilary Benn, Labour MP
for Leeds Central, shadow foreign secretary
(2015-16), 67; Simon Berry, chairman, Berry
Bros & Rudd wine and spirit merchants
(2005-17), 63;Lord (Karan) Bilimoria,
founder (1989) and chairman, Cobra Beer,
president, Confederation of British Industry,
59; Margaret Boden, philosopher and
psychologist, research professor in cognitive
science, University of Sussex, 84; Donald
Cameron, Conservative MSP, Highlands and
Islands, 44; Lord Deben (John Gummer),
chairman, Committee on Climate Change,
and minister of agriculture, fisheries and
food (1989-93), 81; Diana Gerald, chief
executive, Book Trust children’s reading
charity, 52; Grey Hore-Ruthven, Earl of
Gowrie, author, The Italian Visitor and Other
Poems (2013), and chairman, Arts Council of
England (1994-98), 81; Rt Rev Richard
Holloway, bishop of Edinburgh (1986-2000),
and primus of the Episcopal Church in
Scotland (1992-2000), broadcaster and
writer, 87; Liz Jensen, writer, The Uninvited
(2012), 61; Joe Lydon, rugby league player,
Great Britain (1983-92), and coach, 57; John
McVie, bass guitarist with Fleetwood Mac,
75; Rita Ora, singer-songwriter, Let You Love
Me (2018), 30; Peter Plumb, chairman,
Photobox, chief executive, takeaway group
Just Eat (2017-19), Moneysupermarket.com
(2009-16), 57; Baroness (Joyce) Quin,
Labour MP (1987-2005), 76; Baroness
(Gisela) Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham
Edgbaston (1997-2017), 65; Julien Temple,
director, Absolute Beginners (1986), and
writer, Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), 68; Art
Themen, jazz saxophonist and formerly
orthopaedic surgeon, 81; Tina Turner, singer,
Private Dancer (1984), 81; Danny Welbeck,
footballer, Brighton & Hove Albion FC and
England, 30; Peter Wheeler, rugby union
player, England (1975-84), president, Rugby
Football Union (2019-Aug 2020), 72.
“One of the advantages of being over forty is
that one begins to learn the difference between
knowing and realising.” Gustav Holst,
composer, letter to WG Whittaker (1914)
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