the times | Tuesday December 21 2021 33
Leading articles
lethal; or that a rise in fatalities will be evident in
the data shortly. Sajid Javid, the health secretary,
was therefore prudent yesterday not to rule out a
further circuit breaker and right to caution that “if
we wait until the data is perfect, it may be too late”.
This cannot be a sustainable position, though.
Experts in infectious diseases note the speed at
which Omicron cases are doubling, and there is a
strong case for applying a precautionary principle.
It would have been a dismal prospect to tighten
restrictions for the second successive Christmas,
but lives are at risk, and the government is show-
ing raggedness rather than resolution.
Last week Joy Morrissey, a backbench MP, casti-
gated Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for
England, as an “unelected public health spokes-
person [who] should defer to what our ELECTED
members of parliament and the prime minister
have decided”. Nor is she an isolated voice among
Conservatives. The prime minister suffered a
rebellion in the Commons last week over his plan
B for further restrictions, and some ministers have
rejected the conclusions of epidemiological
modelling. Health policy should be dictated by
scientific opinion, not political predilection. The
irony of Mr Johnson’s position is that, while
politically wounded by collapsing poll ratings andspectacular by-election losses, he has public
support in imposing quite draconian restrictions
on personal liberty to stop the spread of infection.
At least, he would have if only he had shown
scrupulous adherence to the rules himself, but
each passing day seems to be marked by revela-
tions to the contrary.
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, has recused
himself from conducting an inquiry into Christ-
mas parties held in Downing Street last year. He
had little alternative once it emerged that he had
been aware of a separate party held in his own
office. And at the weekend a photograph emerged
showing Mr Johnson, his wife and members of
staff socialising in the Downing Street garden in
May. This was at a time when members of the
public were scrupulously observing tight restrict-
ions, involving much heartache and grief as well as
inconvenience, because they believed they had a
civic duty to do so.
Once a government attracts a reputation for
dissembling and hypocrisy while demanding
sacrifices from others, it forfeits respect. Public
disaffection may now endanger lives. For what-
ever length of time remains in his premiership, Mr
Johnson should not cease to express contrition
and repair the damage his insouciance has caused.Now, after a conservative interlude, left-wing
rule is back. Mexico has been ruled by a left-wing
populist since 2018, Argentina since 2019, Bolivia
since last year, and Peru, Honduras and Chile this
year. With Brazilian elections scheduled for next
year it looks as if the tub-thumping populist Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva could be poised to lever Presi-
dent Bolsonaro out of power. In part this is down
to Mr Bolsonaro’s bungling approach to tackling
the pandemic but also to the huge social divisions
exposed by the virus. Every attempt by govern-
ments to scale back subsidies or spending austeri-
ty cuts has been met by street protests and the
further radicalisation of the metropolitan young.
Conservative establishments warned that a vote
for left-wing candidates would bring countries
closer to the nominally socialist autocracy of Mr
Maduro, with its long queues for daily staples, sky-
rocketing costs of living and thuggish police-
linked hit squads. Indeed yesterday the opponents
of Mr Boric warned on social media about the
imminent arrival of what they called #chilven-
ezuela, the wrecking of what had been widely seen
as the wealthiest and most stable state on the sub-continent. Previous warnings did not prevent Mr
Boric’s clear victory in Sunday’s run-off with
56 per cent of the vote. He was seen as a voice for
the young, who regard themselves as the over-
looked victims of the public health crisis.
The danger remains, however, of a sense of
geopolitical naivety. As Latin American states
vote in left-leaning governments, so they become
interesting for China. The Chinese military
already runs a space observation centre in south-
ern Argentina, and negotiations are under way
between Beijing and Peru and Bolivia on the poss-
ible supply of tanks. Huawei sells command and
control packages to sympathetic administrations.
Consistency, competence and ethical leader-
ship are demanded by voters of all countries,
especially in an age of pandemic anxiety. These
are not the preserves of the right or the left and the
swing of the political pendulum does not necessa-
rily presage a repeat of the Venezuelan tragedy or
an unhealthy dependency on Beijing or Moscow.
However, the world, and the country’s voters,
would do well to be vigilant about the future
direction of Chile and its neighbours.where a spectacular discovery of a fossilised milli-
pede skeleton has just revealed the strange world
of the Carboniferous age. Britain in those halcyon
days was on the equator and basked in warm sun,
ample vegetation and a rich supply of oxygen —
the perfect environment for millipedes who grew
bigger and bigger as their body cavities, bathed in
a liquid called haemolymph, absorbed plentiful
supplies of the life-giving gas.
They crawled around Earth’s equatorial regions
for 45 million years, enough time to create their
own leggy culture though not, sadly, to leave any
interesting monuments. Their extinction mayhave been because of global warming during the
Permian period. They were replaced by dinosaurs,
superior reptiles, whose exploits are as vividly real
for every child now as they were when they gob-
bled each other up with their razor-sharp teeth or
practised clumsy flying before evolving into birds.
The Northumberland fossil is the largest ever
found. Two other ancient millipedes have been
found in Germany, but the British variety put itself
on the sun-loungers first. Today there are 7,000
species of millipedes, few, alas, larger than a
human finger. One day, if global warming intensi-
fies, their turn may come again.Stopping the Surge
The government is hampered in slowing the Covid-19 infection rate by backbench
pressure and its own breaches of the rules. It must rededicate itself to this duty
The Omicron variant has spread rapidly but its
impact is as yet unknowable. The cabinet
yesterday deferred a decision on whether to
impose further coronavirus restrictions, though
ministers have not ruled out an additional “circuit
breaker” after Christmas, potentially banning
hospitality events and preventing people from
different households from mixing indoors.
There is logic to this course: Omicron will cause
less destruction than the Delta variant of Covid-19
because a larger proportion of the population has
been vaccinated, many with three jabs. Yet the
government has suffered substantial damage to its
reputation in recent weeks and the suspicion must
be that it is delaying action not for scientific
reasons but to maintain peace with mutinous
Conservative backbenchers. That would be the
worst of rationales, putting public health at risk
out of political expediency. Boris Johnson and his
colleagues must strive to dispel any such impress-
ion, yet they lack the credibility to do so effectively.
Omicron cases have been rising sharply, with
more than 8,000 recorded yesterday, while the
rate of deaths within 28 days of a positive test has
remained stable. This pattern could suggest either
of two scenarios: that the Omicron variant, while
more transmissible than earlier strains, is lessSantiago Shuff le
China has its eye on Latin American states as they lurch leftwards
Gabriel Boric, the newly elected president of Chile
declares himself a “millennial leftist”. This
presumably distinguishes him from a long and
vicious history of revolutionary leaders on the
continent, from the late Fidel Castro of Cuba to
the tyrannical Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Mr
Boric, a 35-year-old former student leader,
promises to be green as well as red, to be open to
feminist issues, and to govern not only through
the traditional socialist strongholds in the trade
unions but also through social media.
Yet this lurch to the left, which is finding echoes
across much of central and south America, could
be viewed as an open invitation to China and
Russia. During the so-called Pink Tide of the early
2000s, the marea rosa, many Latin American
governments shifted away from neoliberal eco-
nomics and towards an embrace of anti-Ameri-
canism. The leaders of Argentina, Brazil and Ven-
ezuela rode the commodity-price boom, at least
until global demand slackened. It was during this
period that China in particular saw an opportuni-
ty to expand its commercial foothold and establish
a creeping military presence on the US doorstep.A Very Leggy Past
Giant millipedes once roamed Britain’s shores
What is it about a giant creepy-crawly that is so
instinctively terrifying to humans? Such creatures
— brainless, relentless, without blood or emotions
— have long been the stuff of horror movies. Kaf-
ka’s nightmare for Gregor Samsa was to find him-
self transformed one morning into a giant beetle.
John Updike, as a child, feared encountering huge
insects. It’s lucky that neither he nor any human
lived in Britain 326 million years ago, for giant mil-
lipedes as big as cars once roamed the country.
These armoured arthropods could grow to 9ft
long and weighed eight stone: not a friendly
encounter on a Northumberland beach. That isUK: Women and equalities committee
releases its report on reform of the Gender
Recognition Act; monthly Treasury report
on public sector finances.
We think of the
holly as having
spiky leaves, but it is
only relatively
young or regularly
pruned bushes that
exhibit that
characteristic leaf shape. Left to their own
devices, the leaves of mature hollies lose
their irregular margins and multiple sharp
points, which are thought to have evolved as
a defence against being eaten by large
herbivores before the plant is big enough to
withstand it. One recent study showed that
even 12 months’ break from being nibbled
reduced the spinescence of hollies, which
can also become spinier on one side of the
bush than the other in reaction to localised
grazing pressure. melissa harrison
In 1862 the US navy Medal of Honor was
established by the US congress as the
highest military honour for gallantry.
Emmanuel Macron,
pictured, president of
France, 44; Jo Bamford,
founder and chairman,
Ryze (hydrogen
investment fund), and
director, JCB, 44; Martin
Bayfield, rugby union
player, England (1991-96), and actor, 55;
Trevor Bayliss, England cricket coach (2015-
19), 59; Mariann Bienz (Lady Pelham),
scientist, Medical Research Council
Laboratory of Molecular Biology, 68; Major-
General Duncan Capps, commandant,
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 55; Julie
Delpy, actress, Before Midnight (2013), and
film-maker, 52; Gloria De Piero, Labour MP
for Ashfield (2010-19), shadow justice
minister (2017-19), and broadcaster, 49; Tom
Enders, chief executive, Airbus (2012-19), 63;
Chris Evert, three-time Wimbledon singles
champion, 67; Jane Fonda, actress, 9 to 5
(1980), 84; Samuel L Jackson, actor, Pulp
Fiction (1994), 73; Charles Michel, president
of the European Council, 46; Steven
Mnuchin, US secretary of the Treasury
(2017-Jan 2021), 59; Vivian Nutton, emeritus
professor of the history of medicine,
University College London, 78; Sir Nicholas
Penny, director, National Gallery (2008-15),
72; John Quayle, actor, Farrington of the F.O.
(1986-87), 83; John Ryley, head of Sky News,
60; Wafic Saïd, financier, founder, Saïd
Business School, University of Oxford, 82;
Sir András Schiff, concert pianist and
conductor, 68; Rachel Shenton, actress, All
Creatures Great and Small (2020-21), and
scriptwriter, The Silent Child (2017; 2018
Oscar winner), 34; Lauren St John, author,
The Obituary Writer (2013), and journalist,
55; Tom Sturridge, actor, Being Julia (2004),
36; Kiefer Sutherland, actor, 24 (2001-10,
2014); Kate Swann, chairwoman, Moonpig
(greeting cards), chief executive of WH
Smith (2003-13), 57; Prof David Thacker,
artistic director (2009-15), now associate,
Octagon Theatre, Bolton, 71; Michael Tilson
Thomas, conductor, 77; Doug Walters,
cricketer, Australia (1965-81), 76; Jo
Whitfield, chief executive, Co-op Food, 53;
Sir Robert Worcester, opinion pollster,
founder of Mori (1969), 88.
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is
what people fear most.” Fyodor
Dostoevsky, Russian novelist, Crime and
Punishment (1866)
Nature notes
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