The Times - UK (2021-11-11)

the times | Thursday November 11 2021 33

Leading articles

proxy, under arrangements intended to allow the

House to function safely during the pandemic. He

hence exploited procedures devised to safeguard

public health in order to more conveniently com-

bine parliamentary duties and business interests.

Rather than acknowledge the concern this has

elicited, Sir Geoffrey has passed the buck to Mark

Spencer, the government chief whip. According to

Sir Geoffrey’s statement: “As to the use of the

proxy, prior to his visit to the BVI, he consulted the

chief whip specifically on this issue and was

advised that it was appropriate.”

This is at best insouciance about the spirit of

parliamentary arrangements. More serious still is

that he took part in a hearing in the BVI case re-

motely from his office in the Commons. The code

of conduct governing MPs’ use of these facilities is

unambiguous. It states: “Members shall ensure

that their use of public resources is always in

support of their parliamentary duties.” In short,

Sir Geoffrey used an office paid for by the taxpayer

in order to act for a territory that markets itself as

an “offshore jurisdiction”, which is euphemism for

a tax haven, in an action against the Foreign

Office. Anyone of sense would have been able to

anticipate the conflict between civic duty and

private acquisitiveness.

The government has sustained self-inflicted

wounds since its abortive attempt to rescue Owen

Paterson from suspension for his breaches of lob-

bying rules. As well as being forced into a speedy

reversal, it has found its shabby manoeuvre

uncovered other cases of MPs’ earning sums that

vastly exceed their parliamentary salaries, several

of them in dubious lobbying activities. Among Mr

Paterson’s “egregious” breaches of standards was

using his parliamentary office to hold meetings for

the companies that employed him. The parlia-

mentary standards commissioner must examine

whether Sir Geoffrey’s conduct is similarly con-

trary to the rules. It beggars belief that he should

still fail to understand how it undermines the

ethos of public service.

Instead of trying to brazen this out, or hope that

the authorities allow him the cover of a legalistic

interpretation of the rules, Sir Geoffrey should of-

fer a swift apology for conduct that shakes public

faith in the conduct of MPs. While he may feel it

is up to his constituents to decide whether they

want to continue with a “senior and distinguished

professional”, others may decide he has no

justification for ignoring the duty to safeguard the

reputation of parliament. Nor should they provide

him with an escape from scrutiny.

Vaccines have a crucial role in stopping this

happening again. The first generation of vaccines

appear less effective in reducing transmission of

the Delta variant than of the Alpha version but

they still substantially cut onward infection. Last

month a Dutch study reported 63 per cent fewer

cases of onward transmission from the vaccinated

to unvaccinated now that the dominant strain is

Delta, compared with 73 per cent when it is Alpha.

In bald terms, vaccines help to prevent care home

staff from catching the virus, and if they do not

have it they cannot pass it on.

Initial objections to mandatory vaccination for

staff working in health and care were that it would

prove counter-productive. Unions and care home

providers argued that it would be better to per-

suade than to coerce those reluctant to get jabbed.

It is now more than six months since Matt

Hancock, Mr Javid’s predecessor, mooted the

possibility of compulsory vaccination, yet about 10

per cent of England’s care-home workforce, some

49,000 staff, are still not double-jabbed.

The argument before the deadline was that the

sector, already struggling with labour shortages,

could not afford to shed one in ten of its workforce

at a stroke. Providers have warned of a “staffing

meltdown” before Christmas as unvaccinated staff

work out their notice.

It is true that social care faces a staffing crisis,

exacerbated by Brexit, and the result could be

more delayed discharges from hospital at a time of

great pressure on the NHS. The government

began a recruitment drive last week aimed at fill-

ing vacancies estimated already to top 100,000.

But postponing the deadline will not address the

fundamental issue. It is wrong that the most

vulnerable people should be cared for by those

who, because of a refusal to be vaccinated, carry an

increased risk of infecting them with the virus.

Measures to improve conditions for the 1.5 mil-

lion people working in the care sector are urgent.

A new training and qualification system, part of a

£500 million workforce package due this year,

should help. More will be needed to help care

homes attract and retain staff in tight labour

markets, including resources to improve wages.

Residents of care homes should not face a choice

between staff who pose a risk or no care at all.

prescriptivism is misguided. What better

reminder could there be of the profound disloca-

tion experienced by homeless families over

Christmas than the sight of players at Villa Park or

Turf Moor in anything but claret and blue, Anfield

without its red, or Molineux without its gold?

It is true, up to a point, that politics and football

have not always mixed. The game cannot endorse

every fashionable cause. Poppies on shirts are an

exception, and a recent one at that. The Liverpool

star Robbie Fowler was fined when he lifted his jer-

sey to reveal a message of solidarity for striking

Mersey dockers in 1997. Marcus Rashford is

scrupulous in keeping his campaigning off the

field of play. And for decades most other stars have

kept their counsel.

So it is notable that the clubs should now be

united. Times are changing: no longer is headline

hedonism the mark of a footballer. A new genera-

tion of socially aware, articulate players are

changing the image of the sport for the better.

Their desire to take the knee before games has

been respected by the game’s authorities, who are

themselves happy to see the identities of clubs ap-

propriated by despots. To refuse this altogether

less controversial gesture would be an own goal.

Cox’s Bazaar

The former attorney-general’s well-paid outside activities, and his use

of a Commons office to pursue them, shake public faith in parliament

Having a big majority is not a licence for MPs to

behave inappropriately. While their duty is to their

constituents, it is also to maintain and preferably

enhance the reputation of the House of Com-

mons. This has not been the case with Sir Geoffrey

Cox QC. The Conservative former attorney-gen-

eral is under fire for earning more than £1 million

for legal work in the past year, including acting for

the British Virgin Islands (BVI). He belatedly is-

sued a statement yesterday that “it is up to the

electors of [his constituency of] Torridge and West

Devon whether or not they vote for someone who

is a senior and distinguished professional in his

field and who still practises that profession”.

This shows no awareness of why voters might

feel disquiet at his outside activities, let alone con-

trition about the evidence The Times has pub-

lished about how he had conducted this business

from his parliamentary office, contrary to House

rules. Sir Geoffrey’s conduct needs to be investi-

gated because it reinforces the damaging percep-

tion that MPs use their job as a means to earn

more money.

Sir Geoffrey visited the BVI in the Caribbean in

the spring and early summer to act for the territo-

ry in a legal inquiry initiated by the Foreign Office.

During his absence he voted in the Commons by

Lack of Care

It is right to make vaccination a condition of employment in care homes

The pandemic has been marked by many horrors

but few have been so harrowing as its toll within

care homes. Government failings in protecting

vulnerable residents were legion, and will need to

be painstakingly dissected in the forthcoming

public inquiry. These cannot be undone but

residents can be better shielded. Sajid Javid, the

health secretary, has science and public opinion

on his side in requiring that care home staff,

working with the most frail, be fully vaccinated

against the coronavirus from today.

The World Health Organisation estimated in

April last year that up to half the Covid-related

deaths in Europe had happened in care facilities.

In hindsight, care homes ought to have been made

a priority for the delivery of essential testing kit,

for residents and staff, from the outset. Govern-

ment advice instead urged care homes to accept

patients discharged from hospital in order to free

up beds, even while the residents of the homes

were facing severe risks. Ministers were slow to

realise how staff were unwittingly spreading in-

fection, as policy lagged an emerging understand-

ing of asymptomatic transmission.

Own Goal

The Premier League should allow players to take a stand on homelessness

Are you a red or a blue? No football fan could fail

to grasp the significance of the inquiry. Nothing, as

foolhardy chairmen occasionally find, could be as

inviolable as the colour players wear at their home

ground. So it is significant that some Premier

League clubs should be willing to forgo them, if

only for a day. Nine teams drawn at home on

Boxing Day had asked they be permitted to wear

their away strips to raise awareness for Shelter, the

homelessness charity. Yet they have been rebuffed

by the game’s authorities.

The league says its rulebook is clear: home

colours must be worn by home teams. But its

UK: Today is Armistice Day, marking the
end of the First World War; the Office for
National Statistics publishes its quarterly
estimate of GDP for the UK.

The nocturnal
world of the moth is
fraught with danger.
Bats are their chief
threat, but moths
are far from
defenceless. Many
species have evolved large ears, which detect
the bats’ sonar calls, enabling the moth to
evade danger. Garden tiger moths have
another kind of defence. They are toxic.
Advertising their unpalatability in the
darkness cannot be done by exhibiting
warning colours, so the garden tiger moth
makes a continual clicking noise, which the
bats hear and readily avoid. Humans with
good hearing can sometimes detect it too.
Using sound like this is called acoustic
aposematism. Some trickster moths exploit
this tactic. Though not toxic, small ermine
moths also make warning sounds.
jonathan tulloch

In 1831 the African-American preacher
Nat Turner was hanged after leading a slave
revolt on August 21, 1831, in Virginia; in 1954 ,
4,000 pensioners attended a rally in central
London to demand an increase in their
allowance, from 32s 6d a week to £2 10s; in
1992 the General Synod of the Church of
England voted to allow women to become
priests, by a margin of two votes.

Stanley Tucci, pictured,
actor, The Devil Wears
Prada (2006), 61;
Annabel Arden, theatre
and opera director,
co-founder of the
Complicité theatre
company, 62; Prof Dame
Jane Dacre, rheumatologist, president,
Medical Protection Society, Royal College of
Physicians (2014-18), 66; Leonardo
DiCaprio, actor, The Revenant (2015), 47;
Jonathan Fenby, author, Crucible: Thirteen
Months that Forged Our World (2018), and
editor of The Observer (1993-95), 79;
Calista Flockhart, actress, Ally McBeal (1997-
2002), 57; Sir Martin Jacomb, banker,
chairman, the British Council (1992-98),
chancellor, University of Buckingham (1998-
2010), 92; Kathy Lette, author, Best Laid
Plans (2017), 63; Andrew Lownie, literary
agent, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, and
biographer, Traitor King: The Scandalous
Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
(2021), 60; Susanna McGibbon, HM
procurator general, Treasury solicitor and
head of the Government Legal Profession,
54; Demi Moore, actress, Ghost (1990), 59;
Jasper Morrison, product and furniture
designer, 62; Cristina Odone, writer and
broadcaster, founder and chairwoman,
Parenting Circle (formerly National
Parenting Trust), 61; Peter Openshaw,
respiratory physician and mucosal
immunologist, professor of experimental
medicine, Imperial College London, 67;
Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua, 76;
James Roose-Evans, theatre director and
founder (1959) of the Hampstead Theatre,
94; Richard Rowe, National Hunt trainer
and former jockey, 62; Ellie Simmonds,
swimmer, five-time Paralympic gold
medallist (2008, 2012, 2016), 27.

“The theatre is so endlessly fascinating
because it’s so accidental. It’s so much like life.”
Arthur Miller, playwright, essayist, and
author, The New York Times (May 9, 1984)

Nature notes

Birthdays today

On this day

The last word

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