the times | Thursday December 3 2020 1GM 37
Leading articles
necessary freezers. It is a rational apprehension
that the logistical challenge may be beyond the
capabilities of the NHS. Public confidence is
certainly not helped by the government’s serial
failures to deliver a promised world-beating test-
and-trace system and to provide protective equip-
ment urgently to hospital staff and care workers.
Rather than acknowledge these lacunae in the
government’s handling of the crisis Matt Han-
cock, the health secretary, chose instead, in
addressing the House of Commons, to laud Brit-
ain’s first place in approving a vaccine and cite it as
a benefit of Brexit. The tone was offbeat.
It is true that the European Medicines Agency,
the regulator for the EU, has yet to authorise this
vaccine or alternative ones. But it responded
sharply that its longer approval procedure was
more appropriate than the British regulator’s as it
provided a more solid legal basis for monitoring.
This fracas was unnecessary and Mr Hancock
ought not to have provoked it. He should instead
acknowledge that the “race” for a vaccine is not a
competition or a zero-sum game. Health regula-
tors must ensure safety. The health secretary’s
duty is to explain that the vaccine meets that test,
and to ensure that it gets to the most vulnerable
first and then to the rest of the population.Mr Hancock should be able to do this. There is
every reason to be confident in the Pfizer/Bion-
tech vaccine. The reason for the speed is the
amount of investment in the research and the fact
that trials and regulatory scrutiny have unusually
been conducted in parallel rather than sequential-
ly. Hence the data has been reviewed while the
trials have still been going on rather than at their
conclusion. That does not mean corners have
been cut. Any side-effects compromising safety of
the vaccine would by now have been discovered.
Contrary to populist criticisms of Big Pharma, the
pharmaceutical giants have built up stockpiles of
vaccines in advance, thereby shouldering the busi-
ness risk that these will be ineffective.
Mr Hancock should ensure transparency of the
approval process. Science is not a private activity
but a collaborative one, in which data is open to
scrutiny. There will be reasonable public suspi-
cions to address as well as the baseless propaganda
of anti-vaccine campaigners to rebut. The govern-
ment has allowed the impression to gather that
the crisis will be over by Easter, yet the logistical
task of distributing the vaccine makes this implau-
sible. The message is encouraging but the govern-
ment needs to avoid triumphalism. Above all, it
needs to deliver.students and visitors that at once endorsed “robust
and challenging” debate, “free speech within the
law” and an expectation that all would be “free to
express themselves without fear of disrespect”.
The fact that these ideas are incompatible
appears to have escaped Stephen Toope, Cam-
bridge’s vice-chancellor. He insists that “robust
debate” is impossible “when some members of the
community are made to feel personally attacked,
not for their ideas but their very identity”. It is a
well-intentioned line written with the sensitivities
of his student body in mind, which is precisely the
problem.
Some ideas are bad, wrong or downright dan-
gerous. That they are sincerely held or precious to
one culture or another does not itself make them
worthy of respect, which must be earned. Rather
it is the duty of institutions such as Cambridge to
disprove and demolish them, whatever the upset
to others. Indeed, in many cases upset, embarrass-
ment or mockery is necessary and desirable.
It is for that reason that more than 100 Cam-
bridge academics have backed an alternative
motion enshrining tolerance, rather than respect,in the new code of conduct. Their course is correct.
Adversaries should hear one another’s arguments,
no matter how egregious or threatening to the
other’s worldview. That courtesy is both the least
and the most anyone espousing their views as
truth in an academic setting deserves. Stipulating
tolerance allows the antivaxer or climate change
denier to make their case before it is taken apart.
Prohibiting disrespect elevates it to the same
height as proven science and is a bar on both
honesty and rationality.
Students would still learn of phrenology and
phlogiston as scientific fact if previous generations
had put the same price on hurt feelings as academ-
ic freedom. The risk is that its rules become a char-
ter not for fashionable values on ever more subjec-
tive questions of personal identity, as is doubtless
the intent, but for quacks and extremists to make
their arguments with impunity while others are
silenced for fear of causing offence. Something has
gone badly awry in the culture and administration
of British higher education for this to be the case.
Cambridge’s staff should take the opportunity to
correct it, disrespect it, and vote for tolerance.increased costs the company has incurred during
the pandemic, it is clearly able to meet these with-
out government help.
Despite Tesco’s rising profits, no true winners
can emerge from such a protracted and deadly
crisis. Yet in a list of those who have lost the least
Tesco would figure fairly high, as online orders
soared and its stores stayed open while those of
smaller local rivals had to close. It has also sold a
lot more sandwiches at a time when restaurants
have been closed. The rate relief was introduced in
April when no one could foresee the effects of
restrictions on retailing in general and the grocerysector in particular. It having become clear that
large supermarket chains have actually fared very
well these past nine months, the tax break became
embarrassingly superfluous. There are many
more deserving recipients for state help.
Prominent among Tesco’s critics have been not
only MPs and customers but its keenest competi-
tors too. Yet the other members of the so-called
Big Six supermarkets have also received rate relief,
totalling £1.9 billion. Tesco has done the decent
thing and replenished the Treasury’s coffers, and
Morrisons has followed suit. The other supermar-
kets should do the same with their own share.Operation Covid Buster
The government and the NHS face one of the great logistical and medical challenges
of modern times in vaccinating most of the country as rapidly as possible
Yesterday ought to have been a celebration of the
expertise of scientists in developing vaccines for a
coronavirus that was unknown a year ago. In-
stead, in announcing that Britain would be the first
country to approve a coronavirus vaccine for use,
the government managed to get embroiled in an
unseemly and pointless argument with European
health regulators about the merits of Brexit.
This was neither the right time nor the relevant
issue. The episode underlines the habitual tenden-
cy of this administration, in the greatest public
health crisis for generations, to over-promise and
under-deliver. The government should now
eschew boasting, explain the science and concen-
trate on discharging the immense logistical task of
distributing the selected vaccine developed by the
biotech company Biontech and the pharmaceuti-
cal giant Pfizer.
The final trial results show that this vaccine is
95 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19. The
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory
Agency (MHRA), the independent regulator, has
approved its use and the government has bought
40 million doses. Yet the complications of storing
the vaccine and distributing it are tricky. It needs
to be refrigerated at -70C and has to be shipped in
specialist equipment to hospitals that have theUniversity Challenge
Cambridge’s proposed new code of conduct will chill free speech
Bleak news about threats to free speech at Britain’s
universities is nothing new. Nor are censorious
students, whose misplaced rectitude in the face of
controversial thinking can often be put down to
youthful enthusiasm. However Cambridge
University and its vice-chancellor have no such
excuse. Yet if they get their way in a ballot of 7,000
members this week a new code of conduct will
compel anyone who so much as visits the univers-
ity to “be respectful” of any opinion they may
encounter. That an institution responsible for so
many advances in human progress should pro-
pose a policy inimical to its own purpose and
values is unconscionable.
Bafflingly, Cambridge insists this proscription
on the free exchange of ideas is in fact designed to
protect it. In March Jordan Peterson, a Canadian
psychology professor, was offered a visiting fel-
lowship by the university. It was promptly with-
drawn after a backlash from students opposed to
his disdain for political correctness. Anxious dons
demanded protections for their own freedom of
expression, lest their employment be terminated
next. The response was a code of conduct for staff,Every Little Helps
Tesco is right to realise it should not benefit from public subsidy
Two months after its chairman promised to
“defend to the death” his board’s decision to pay a
£900 million dividend despite receiving £585 mil-
lion from the taxpayer in business rate relief,
Britain’s biggest supermarket chain has bowed to
pressure. Tesco has promised to repay the latter
sum to the exchequer.
While the board deserves credit for the move,
the reality is that it had little choice given the justi-
fied mounting outrage over what was in effect a
huge subsidy to a company that reported a 28.7 per
cent rise in pre-tax profits to £551 million for the
six months to the end of August. WhateverUK: Travel window opens to allow students
to spend Christmas with their families;
the lighting of the Norwegian Christmas
Tree in Trafalgar Square takes place.
During winter most
insect species go
into diapause, a
state of dormancy
similar to
hibernation. Not so
the winter gnat. On
late afternoons, male winter gnats,
Trichocera annulata, swarm together in
sheltered nooks such as woodland edges,
hedges, parks and gardens. Their aim is to
attract females. They do this by swaying and
shimmying and making themselves as visible
as possible. Collectively these pulsing,
balletic swarms can seem to fizz and sparkle
in the low sunlight. Winter gnats will dance
like this even when the frost lies hard. With
everything else gaunt and devoid of life, they
provide a vital source of food for birds such
as wrens and robins. jonathan tulloch
In 1984 an escape of toxic gas from the
Union Carbide pesticide factory near
Bhopal, India, killed thousands of people in
the days after the disaster.
Jean-Luc Godard,
pictured, film director,
Breathless (1960), Bridges
of Sarajevo (2014), 90;
Henry Fitzalan-Howard,
Earl of Arundel and
Surrey, 33; Richard
Bacon, Conservative MP
for South Norfolk, 58; Mark Boucher,
cricketer, South Africa, (1997-2012), 44; Kay
Boycott, chief executive, Asthma UK, 51;
Jean-Frederic Dufour, chief executive, Rolex
Group, 53; Brendan Fraser, actor, The
Mummy (1999), 52; Mike Gibson, rugby
union player, Ireland (1964-79), British and
Irish Lions (1966-71), 78; Lord (Angus)
Glennie, senator of the College of Justice in
Scotland, 70; Daryl Hannah, actress, Splash
(1984), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), 60; Eamonn
Holmes, broadcaster, This Morning (since
2006), 61; Maxwell Hutchinson, architect,
president, Royal Institute of British
Architects (1989-91), and guest presenter,
Songs of Praise (2006-09), 72; Franz
Klammer, alpine ski racer, Olympic gold
medallist (1976) and five-time downhill
world cup champion, 67; Ralph McTell,
singer-songwriter, Streets of London (1969),
76; Julianne Moore, actress, The End of the
Affair (1999), 60; Ozzy Osbourne, singer,
Paranoid (1970), 72; Prof David Phillips,
chemist, president, Royal Society of
Chemistry (2010-12), 81; Lord (David) Prior
of Brampton, chairman, NHS England,
Conservative MP (1997-2001), business,
energy and industrial strategy minister
(2016-17), 66; Craig Raine, poet and novelist,
The Divine Comedy (2012), 76; Jonathan
Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere,
chairman, Daily Mail and General Trust, 53;
Stephen Rubin, chairman, Pentland Group,
83; Amanda Seyfried, actress, Mamma Mia!
(2008), 35; Dan Snow, historian and TV
presenter, 42; Andrew Stanton, film-maker,
Finding Nemo (2003), 55; Mickey Thomas,
rock singer, Jefferson Starship and Starship,
Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (1987), 71;
Katarina Witt, figure skater, two-time
Olympic gold medallist (1984, 1988) and
four-time world champion, 55.
“Great artists are people who find the way to be
themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension
induces mediocrity in art and life alike.” Margot
Fonteyn, ballerina, Autobiography (1975)
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