The Week UK - 03.08.2019

Talking points NEWS 21

3August 2019 THE WEEK

The Fortnite addiction: alost childhood?

“People seem to be

disappointed that the ethnic

minority/BAME politicians

Boris Johnson has selected

for his Cabinet are Tories.”

Comedian Shappi

Khorsandi, quoted in

The Guardian

“The years between 50 and

70 are the hardest; you are

always being asked to do

things, but are not decrepit

enough to turn them down.”

T.S. Eliot, quoted in

The Daily Telegraph

“Donald Trump thinks

the Bill of Rights is just

one more invoice he

doesn’t have to pay.”

Christian Britschgi on

Reason.com

“Happiness is something

that comes into our lives

through doors we don’t even

remember leaving open.”

American journalist

Rose Wilder Lane, quoted

in the Inewspaper

“Old men delight in giving

good advice asaconsolation

for the fact that they can no

longer set bad examples.”

Writer François de La

Rochefoucauld, quoted in

The New Yorker

“A sure way to

lose happiness,Ifound,

is to want it at the

expense of everything else.”

Bette Davis, quoted in

The Columbus Dispatch

“There are no true friends in

politics. We are all sharks

circling and waiting for

traces of blood to appear

in the water.”

Conservative politician

Alan Clark, quoted in

The Independent

It normally takes years for
back-room staff to become
the story, said John McTernan
in the FT, but the Prime
Minister’s new senior adviser,
Dominic Cummings, is no
ordinary aide. As the man
who led the Leave campaign
to victory, he is “seen by
friends and foes alike as
someone who can shape
the political landscape”.
He knows what he wants to
achieve–and isn’t afraid of
upsetting people. In the past
he has voiced contempt for,
among others, the former Lib
Dem leader Nick Clegg (“a
revolting character”) and the
former Brexit secretary David Davis (“thick
as mince”); and he was found in contempt of
Parliamentafew months ago for failing to
testify ataCommons inquiry into fake news.
David Cameron, who initially barred Cummings
from becoming an adviser to Michael Gove in
the Department for Education,famously
described him asa“career psychopath”.

Cummings can feud with the best of them,
said Patrick Wintour in The Guardian, but his
scrappy image beliesathoughtful character.
Along-time advocate of Whitehall reform,
he is “much more focused and target-driven”
than Cameron’s blue-sky thinker Steve Hilton.
Cummings is in fact the “purest of technocrats”,
said John Naughton in The Observer. He’s

fascinated by the ways data

analysis and science can be

applied to problems. “For

him, the Manhattan Project,

creating the internet and the

Apollo programme are

inspirational examples of how

smart determination delivers

world-changing results.” What

Cummings overlooks, though,

is that those visions were

realised “outside the realm of

democratic politics”, and with

the help ofa“bottomless well

of wartime or Cold War

funding”. It will beadifferent

story trying to reboot Britain

today, under tight political

and economic constraints.

Cummings is giving it his best shot, said Tim

Shipman in The Sunday Times. In his first pep

talk to No. 10 aides last week, he told staff to

cancel their holidays and focus on Brexit. “We

are leaving by any means necessary,” he

repeated. For officials used to the May regime, it

was like “a blast of cold air which both refreshes

and unsettles”. One emerged from the meeting

saying they had “never heard anyone like him”.

Another said: “There isaclear plan. We haven’t

had aclear plan for three years.” Whatever

happens next, it’s unlikely to be boring. As a

serving cabinet minister put it: “I can’t work out

whether this is going to be the greatest implosion

in the history of British politics or the greatest

triumph, but it’s definitely one of the two.”

The PM’s adviser: “a blast of cold air”

Being 15 once involved
“cramming for exams and
earningafew pounds from a
paper round”, said Mark Bridge
in The Times. “For today’s
youth, however, it can mean
playing video games in front of
aglobal audience” and banking
millions of pounds for their
efforts. Last week, tens of
thousands of people packed the
Arthur Ashe Stadium in New
York, home of the US Open, to
watch the first ever World Cup finals ofFortnite,
an online shooting game in which players battle
it out onavirtual island to be the last one
standing. Many more viewed it online. More
than 40 million people had tried to qualify for
the contest: only 100 got through. One was
Jaden Ashman, 15, from Essex, who shared
£1.8m in prize money with his Dutch partner
for coming second in the duos event.

Forgive me ifIdon’t cheer, said Heidi Scrimgeour
in the Daily Mail. Like many parents,Ihave to
fight and plead to get my teenage children ever
to stop playing this game. Yet now they can
claim another reason to keep doing so: it could
make them rich. “Gaming is evenacareer choice,
for heaven’s sake: they’re known as professional

e-sports players! What hope do

we have?” Relax, said Alysia

Judge in theInewspaper.

Fortniteis no more “addictive”

than any of the other video

games that have causedafuss

over the years. Children play

it because it’s fun. “It’s where

they hang out after school,

chatting down headsets and

performing hero moments that

will become the chat of the

playground tomorrow.”

There’s no call fora“moral panic”.

Perhaps not, said Celia Walden in The Daily

Telegraph, butIstill hate the idea of people

wasting their youth in this way. Ashman, who

got his first Xbox aged six, says he playsFortnite

eight hoursaday during the week, and 14 hours

on weekends. His mother tried to stop him.

“I’ve thrown an Xbox out, snappedahead

set,” she told the BBC:“we’ve hadanightmare.”

Now she’s reconciled to his gaming, but his

winnings seemapoor trade for those lost months

of childhood. Yes, he deserves his success, but

“imagine how many children trying to emulate

him are doomed to failure–not just at the

World Cup or 2024 E-gaming Olympics, but at

this surprisingly thrilling thing called real life”.

Statistics of theweek

Only 1.5% of rapes reported

in England and Wales in the

year to March resulted in a

charge or summons, down

from 3.3% the year before.

The Guardian/Home Office

Supermarket fridges use

around 1% of all the

electricity in the UK.

Daily Mail/Defra

Cummings: reshaping the landscape

Wit&

Wisdom

Jaden and his mother