the times | Wednesday October 14 2020 1GM 29
Leading articles
the United Kingdom is one nation and not four
has always been a cultural fiction rather than a
political reality. The same is even truer of the
fragmented English polity in 2020.
One needs only to have observed the contribu-
tions of Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester
mayor, to debates over lockdown to know that
relations between central government and the
new awkward squad of local leaders, thrust centre
stage by regional lockdowns, have seldom been
smooth. Yet their emergence as serious players
need not endanger Mr Johnson’s authority. Irritat-
ing though their opposition may be to Downing
Street, metro mayors are not carbuncles on the
constitution and may yet prove to be enhance-
ments. If the prime minister is serious about level-
ling up and redressing regional imbalances in the
economy, he should take resistance from regional
mayors not as a threat but as a sign of potential,
and seize the regional devolution agenda.
The pandemic has further exposed structural
weaknesses in Britain’s governance and economy
already laid bare by the EU referendum and the
2019 general election. Centralisation meant
London was England’s capital city in both senses
of the word. Its success deprived the regions of jobs
and opportunity, the result being an imbalancedeconomy and a democratic process that alienated
rather than served those outside London.
Devolving power over transport, planning,
housing, further education and health to regional
authorities, led by mayors directly accountable to
the voters, has been the correct prescription to
drive up growth and productivity.
Yet devolution remains a work in progress.
While the crisis has affirmed the authority of may-
ors to the public, Mr Johnson has at times seemed
primarily interested in devolving blame. Likewise
metro mayors lack powers to match their new-
found profile and are heavily dependent on
financial grants from central government.
Both are a consequence of the ad hoc deals
struck since 2015, which established mayoralties
of varying powers. It is no wonder some spend
most of their time in the bully pulpit rather than
the corridors of power. Mr Johnson was no
stranger to similar tactics in his eight years at City
Hall in London. But the answer to criticism from
regional leaders is not to resist it but empower
them. In last year’s Queen’s Speech, the govern-
ment promised to reorganise local government
and devolve more power to mayors. It should press
ahead and allow England’s regions to level up
themselves.the revenues of tech companies where they make
them. The government claimed this would make
“global giants with profitable businesses in the UK
pay their fair share towards supporting our public
services”. Yet it isn’t working like that.
While bricks and mortar stores have suffered a
collapse in revenues because of the pandemic,
Amazon has thrived. Its revenues for the second
quarter rose by 40 per cent to just under $90 bil-
lion. Yet in August it declared that it would not pay
tax. Instead it has passed the cost on to small sell-
ers who pay a fee to use Amazon’s platform. This
is because of the way the tax is designed. It does not
apply to a digital marketplace, which puts sellers
together with buyers, but to the sellers themselves.
Hence the tax boosts the competitive advantage of
Amazon, as the only way the sellers can recoup the
cost is by charging higher prices to consumers.
The government intends to drop the tax once a
global agreement is in place. The Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, an
intergovernmental body of 37 member states, is
hosting negotiations to devise an international tax
system, which the tech giants say they support. Yetthe Trump administration has pulled out of the
negotiations. And even if an agreement were
reached, some countries would be reluctant to
implement it, hoping to attract the tech compa-
nies’ business.
The 2 per cent tax is hence entrenching, rather
than dispersing, the monopoly power of Amazon
by ill-designed legislation, and there is no sign that
international arrangements will do the job
instead. The inability of national governments to
tax the tech giants properly, and the unwillingness
of the companies to co-operate, risks tarnishing
the reputation of the market economy.
The immense productive gains of capitalism are
generated by competition to win customers’
favour. Monopoly power instead leaves customers
vulnerable to corporate whim, and requires gov-
ernments to raise more in income tax in order to
fund public services. Lacking the ability to tax
effectively, democratic governments need to turn
to anti-trust legislation to rein in the power of tech
giants. Until this happens, taxpayers and consum-
ers will be at the mercy of free-wheeling compa-
nies that show little sense of corporate citizenship.unquestionably the domestic chicken. Even
animals that we think of as wild predominantly
now tend not to be. As the hit Netflix documentary
Tiger King revealed this year, there are probably
fewer tigers roaming free in India than there are in
captivity in Texas.
Perhaps this is why humans, almost universally,
seem to find animal documentaries so uplifting.
As we report today, a study in the Journal of
Environmental Psychology has found that they can
“uplift people’s moods, reduce negative emotions,
and help alleviate the kind of boredom associated
with being isolated indoors”. We all knew thisalready, but it is good to have it confirmed. It could
be a brave pair of penguin parents, or an iguana
outrunning a thousand snakes. It could be a goril-
la, a pride of lions, or a polar bear covering his nose.
Meanwhile, as we also report, twitchers have
been flocking — if that’s not the wrong word — to
witness a rare hoopoe bird on a cricket pitch in
Collingham. The hard lockdown had few enough
joys, but one of them was the tentative invasion of
wildlife, from birds and bats in urban gardens, to
goats to the streets of Llandudno. The human
connection with wildlife is complex and soulful,
but also undeniable. It is in our nature.Mayor Culpa
The emergence of England’s regional mayors as a political force is a
welcome development. Boris Johnson should embrace further devolution
England’s young constitutional settlement is
coming of age. When the histories of this period
are written, they are likely to record that it was the
mayors of the great cities and regions, rather than
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, who emerged
as the primary tribunes of popular opposition to
Boris Johnson’s handling of the pandemic as the
second wave gathered pace. When the prime
minister announced that the most draconian of
the three new tiers of coronavirus restrictions
would be imposed upon Merseyside, it was Steve
Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool city region,
whom he sought to cast as responsible. Likewise
residents of those regions that have for now
escaped the harshest measures, such as Greater
Manchester, have their mayors to thank.
While far from perfect, the crisis has demon-
strated that the mayoral model of regional devolu-
tion pioneered by New Labour and extended by
the Cameron government is here to stay. Some
17 million of England’s residents, or 37 per cent, live
under the jurisdiction of nine metro mayors, most
notably in London, Greater Manchester and
Merseyside. Directly elected mayors such as
Bristol’s Marvin Rees, a model of responsible civic
leadership at the height of the Black Lives Matter
protests, also lead 15 local councils. The idea thatDigital Duties
The attempt to tax tech giants has backfired and is penalising small sellers
The world economy has been transformed,
generally for the good, by online technology. In
retailing, consumers benefit from greater
convenience, lower costs and expanded choice.
Yet the greatest beneficiaries of the digital age are
the tech companies themselves, which exploit
their power to suppress competition. The govern-
ment has attempted to redress the balance by
introducing a digital services tax that requires the
tech giants to pay back a small percentage of the
revenues they earn in Britain.
However, this 2 per cent tax on revenues gener-
ated from online sales is hitting precisely the
wrong target. It is being paid not by the behemoth
of Amazon but by the small sellers that use its
platform. This is a perverse outcome of the well-
intentioned attempt to level the playing field. It
reinforces the case, argued in congressional
hearings in Washington, for regulation to curb
these monopoly powers.
Tech giants have long legally avoided tax by bas-
ing their headquarters in one jurisdiction while
earning the bulk of their revenues elsewhere. The
tax was intended to close this loophole by curbingCall of the Wild
It’s not all because of Sir David Attenborough
The natural human state is to be a minority in
nature. Homo sapiens has walked this Earth for
300,000 years, and until relatively recently there
were more of most other things than there were of
us. The lives of our forefathers were spent peering
out at a world full of wild birds and beasts.
Instinctively, we assume ours are too.
They are not. According to one oft-quoted
calculation from 2018, about 60 per cent of
mammals alive today are livestock. The vast bulk
of the rest are people. Wild animals, it is thought,
make up a mere 4 per cent. Wild birds fare rather
better, but the most common bird in the world isUK: Peers question Robert Buckland, the
justice secretary, on the Internal Market Bill.
World: Finance ministers and central bank
governors of G20 countries meet virtually.
Though it is mid-
autumn, one of our
most fascinating
and striking insects
is still on the wing.
With its bright
orange legs, sturdyblack body, flamboyantly curling antennae
and ponderous flight, the black slip wasp
(Pimpla rufipes) is a must-see in autumn.
Up to 1.5cm in length, the females also have
protruding ovipositors that look like the
business end of a hypodermic needle. It has
a grisly lifecycle. A parasitic wasp of the
Ichneumonidae family, it searches for the
pupae of great white butterflies and gypsy
moths, then injects its eggs into them. They
hatch and the larvae slowly munch their
way through the host. jonathan tulloch
In 1926 AA Milne’s first collection of
Winnie-the-Pooh tales was published; in 1969
the seven-sided 50p coin entered circulation.
It was the world’s first heptagonal coin.
Sir Cliff Richard,
pictured, singer, Living
Doll (1959), The
Millennium Prayer (1999),
80; Jon Ashworth,
Labour Co-op MP for
Leicester South, shadow
health and social caresecretary, 42; Alex Beard, chief executive,
Royal Opera House, 57; Iwona Blazwick,
director, Whitechapel Gallery, 65; Sir David
Bodey, High Court judge (1999-2017), 73;
Vice-Admiral Paul Boissier, chief executive,
Royal National Lifeboat Institution (2009-
19), 67; Lady (Dame Diana) Brittan of
Spennithorne, chairwoman, Independent
Age charity (2009-17), 80; Steve Coogan,
comedian and actor, I’m Alan Partridge
(1997-2002), 55; Steve Cram, athlete, 1,500m
Olympic silver medallist (1984), and BBC
chief athletics commentator, 60; Sir Martin
Davidson, chairman, Great Britain China
Centre, chief executive, British Council
(2007-14), 65; Justin Hayward, singer and
musician, the Moody Blues, Nights in White
Satin (1967), 74; Bob Hiller, rugby union
player, England (1968-72), 78; Prof Victor
Hoffbrand, haematologist, 85; Lesley
Joseph, actress, Birds of a Feather (1989-98,
2014-17), 75; Kay-Tee Khaw, professor of
clinical gerontology, Cambridge University
(1989-2018, now emeritus), 70; Ralph
Lauren, fashion designer, founder, Polo
Menswear Co (1968), 81; Matt Le Tissier,
footballer, Southampton (1986-2002) and
England (1994-97), 52; Lord (Richard) Luce,
Conservative MP (1971-92), lord chamberlain
(2000-06), 84; Sir David Murray,
businessman, former owner and chairman of
Rangers Football Club, 69; Prof Helen
Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman, Royal
College of General Practitioners (2016-19),
50; Roger Taylor, tennis player and coach,
79; Christopher Timothy, actor, All
Creatures Great and Small (1978-90), 80;
Carole Tongue, founder (2005) and
chairwoman, UK Coalition for Cultural
Diversity, 65; J Craig Venter, geneticist and
biochemist, pioneer in human genome
sequencing, 74; Ben Whishaw, actor, Spectre
(2015), 40; Rose Wylie, painter, 86.
“Experience is what you get while looking for
something else.” Federico Fellini, film director,
I’m a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon (2003)
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