the times | Wednesday February 16 2022 27
Leading articles
cal. If the units being withdrawn, ostensibly
because they have finished their training exercise,
leave in place all the heavy equipment needed for
an invasion, they might as well have stayed where
they were. They or replacements could be back
within hours. At the same time, the pressure is
being increased on the two breakaway Ukrainian
provinces which were the casus belli in 2014 and
which have received massive Russian support as
well as passports for thousands of their citizens.
The Duma has proposed Russian recognition of
Luhansk and Donetsk as separate countries, a
move that would be a cover for Russia to come to
their “aid” whenever they were “invited.”
Mr Putin has no real need, however, for such a
step. The provinces serve a useful purpose as a
source of unresolved tension, just as the frozen
conflicts over breakaway territories in Georgia
and Moldova serve to destabilise those other
former Soviet republics. Moscow can insist that it
is willing to implement the Minsk agreements on
the provinces’ future within Ukraine, while blam-
ing Kyiv for refusing to grant them full autonomy.
Russia has no intention of absorbing and paying
for these ruined provinces; they are of far more use
as a reason why Ukraine, with a continuing terri-
torial dispute, could never be accepted into Nato.And Russian troops will remain just across the
border to ensure that the dispute goes on.
If Ukraine, desperate to know Moscow’s inten-
tions and the price of de-escalation, could be per-
suaded to put its Nato application on ice, as some
local politicians suggest, Mr Putin would then
have won the bulk of what he wanted without
incurring catastrophic sanctions or having to
sacrifice Russian lives. He could present this at
home as a victory for a master strategist. It would,
however, be a pyrrhic victory. What the past
month has done is something that no western
statesman has been able to do since the collapse of
communism: give Nato the unity, cohesion and
sense of purpose for which it has long been search-
ing. Almost all of the new eastern European mem-
bers have had their defences strengthened and
their Nato loyalties boosted. The United States
has rediscovered its leadership role and transat-
lantic focus. And few western Europeans would
now agree with President Macron’s earlier obser-
vation that Nato was “brain dead”. Mr Putin has
also suffered an irreversible lost of trust among
Russia’s neighbours. His irredentist vision of
Russia as a dominant power has engendered
widespread suspicion and opposition. Winning
back Ukraine under duress may prove costly.is continuing to create jobs. In the three months
from October to December, the employment rate
rose slightly to 75.5 per cent, which is not far below
the pre-pandemic level, while the unemployment
rate is relatively stable at 4.1 per cent.
The quandary is illustrated by two numbers.
The number of job vacancies rose by the end of
2021 to almost 1.3 million, indicating that business-
es are struggling with labour shortages. And while
wage growth has been strong, with a rise of 4.9 per
cent in the year to December, it is lagging behind
inflation and likely to lag further in the short term.
Living standards are under pressure from rising
prices, not least of energy.
What, then, should policymakers do? First, the
Bank of England must be prepared to take further
action to bring inflation back to its target of 2 per
cent a year. Although it raised interest rates in
both December and February, these still stand at
a historically low level of 0.5 per cent. After a sharp
contraction in 2020, GDP rose by 7.5 per cent in- Very loose monetary policy is not necessary
to allow the economy to emerge from the damage
caused by the pandemic and lockdowns. Second,
the government should resist the temptation to
meddle in the labour market. Business support
measures, including the furlough scheme, were
needed in the early stages of the crisis to try to
limit the damage to the economy. They did their
job, but there is no reason to think that further
subsidies for favoured sectors will hasten the up-
turn. Politicians do not possess special insight into
what jobs will be in demand in the post-pandemic
economy.
Indeed the behaviour of the labour market dur-
ing the crisis has already confounded many expec-
tations. Disruption has been especially great for
older workers, who had found it harder to find new
jobs, while labour shortages have arisen in lower-
paid sectors such as social care, which may mean
that employers have to raise wages. The crisis will
probably end up narrowing some sectoral and
generational gaps in earnings and employment,
while creating new ones elsewhere. The long-
term task is to get workers with the right skills into
the right jobs. It is best accomplished by businesses
themselves, responding to market signals, rather
than by ambitious government plans.statins has, in recent years, become more complex.
In 2013, an article in The BMJ raised the alarm
about side effects, which were said to include
muscle problems and greater risk of diabetes.
Although those findings have been contested ever
since, confidence among doctors and patients was
badly dented. As a result, new prescriptions
dropped by almost half within a few years. Many
stopped taking them.
Now a study of more than four million people
suggests that the risk of side effects has been much
exaggerated. According to research published in
the European Heart Journal, fewer than one in tenusers will truly feel side effects from statins.
Others may be suffering from a “nocebo” effect,
when the expectation of symptoms actually caus-
es them. It is troubling to ponder just how much
damage has been caused by a decade of largely
baseless fears.
Statin intolerance does exist, and it appears
more likely to affect older people, women,
members of some ethnic minorities and people
suffering from some other medical conditions. Yet
for the vast majority of those at risk of heart
problems, even when the risk is small, statins
should once again become the norm.Back to Barracks?
Putin may calculate that his military blackmail has won him much of
what he wanted. It has also cost him trust among Russia’s neighbours
One day before western analysts expected Russia
to invade Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry
claimed yesterday that it had begun pulling back
some troops from the Ukrainian border. Western
officials, however, said they saw the opposite: the
withdrawal of some units, to be replaced by fresh
reinforcements. Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato
secretary-general, treated the Russian announce-
ment with extreme caution, as did the Ukrainian
foreign minister. Mr Stoltenberg initially said this
might be a cause for optimism. Indeed it might.
But it also could be part of a well-plotted game
plan that could give President Putin much of what
he wanted before he began to destabilise Euro-
pean security on a historic scale.
The Russian announcement was timed to
coincide with the visit to Moscow of Olaf Scholz,
the German chancellor, who has been markedly
more hesitant than other Nato leaders to threaten
Russia with sanctions or to send emergency mili-
tary aid to Ukraine. If Mr Scholz could be persuad-
ed that he had won a diplomatic breakthrough, he
would be reluctant to block the opening of the
Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, as essential to an
energy-starved Germany as it is to Russian hopes
of increasing its dominance of the gas market.
Russian concessions, however, are always tacti-Future Jobs
The best plan for post-pandemic recovery is to allow the market to work
The pandemic inflicted a huge shock to the global
economy, including Britain. Yet, despite problems
compounded by the uncertainties of Brexit, this
country recorded the strongest recovery in GDP
growth in 2021 among the G7 economies, after an
admittedly steep downturn in 2020. Figures
released yesterday also show continued recovery
in the labour market. The main problem as Britain
emerges from the crisis is that inflation is stronger
than either the Bank of England or the Treasury
had expected.
Even with annual inflation projected to reach
7 per cent in the spring, there is no cause for eco-
nomic alarmism. Real wages are higher than they
were at the start of the crisis, and many house-
holds will have built up savings during the down-
turn. The best way for the government to help
consumers, employees and businesses to make a
smooth transition to post-pandemic conditions is
to get out of the way and allow markets to work.
The heartening news from the data is that the
end of the furlough scheme and the emergence of
the Omicron strain have not caused a jump in un-
employment. On the contrary, Britain’s economyTake Heart
The risk of side effects from statins has been grossly exaggerated
Statins save lives. Among all age groups, they
lower the risk of heart attack by at least 20 per
cent. They do this by dramatically lowering chol-
esterol and, according to a study reported in The
Times a fortnight ago, may also cut men’s risk of
developing prostate cancer.
As a cheap drug costing in the region of £20 a
year per person, they are already taken by more
than seven million British adults and could feasi-
bly be taken by far more. The National Institute for
Health and Care Excellence has suggested that
they be taken by nearly all men over 60 and
women over 65. Yet the public perception ofFrance: National Covid restrictions expire,
allowing nightclubs to reopen for the first
time since December and bringing an end to
compulsory table service in cafés and bars.
Who dropped that
jam tart in the
middle of the
woods? If you’re
walking through
winter woodland
and you come
across an ageing scarlet elf cup fungus, it’s
easy to mistake it for a strawberry jam tart.
The edges of the fungus’s shallow disc are
the colour of shortcrust pastry, while the
heart is a bold, shiny red. When younger,
this fungus is more cup-shaped but it
flattens with age. One of the few fungi to
grace the cold time of year, the scarlet elf
cup lights up dark, damp, shady places.
Often glinting in the leaf litter, it thrives on
the decaying sticks and branches of hazel,
elm and willow. jonathan tulloch
In 600 Pope Gregory I, in a time of plague,
issued an edict that “God bless you” be said
by everyone within earshot of a sneeze.
June Brown, pictured,
actress best known as
Dot Cotton in
EastEnders, 95;
Mahershala Ali, actor,
Moonlight (2016), 48;
Adama Barrow,
president of the Gambia,
57; Jim Beaton, police officer, awarded the
George Cross (1974) while protection officer
to Princess Anne, 79; Fred Cuming,
landscape painter, 92; Agyness Deyn, model
and actress, 39; Sir Anthony Dowell, ballet
dancer, director, Royal Ballet (1986-2001), 79;
Christopher Eccleston, actor, Doctor Who
(2005), 58; Iñaki Ereño, chief executive,
Bupa, 58; Richard Ford, writer, The
Sportswriter (1986), 78; Cathy Freeman, first
Australian Aboriginal person to win an
individual Olympic gold medal (400m,
2000), 49; Ellis Genge, rugby union player,
Leicester Tigers and England, 27; David
Griffiths, artist, portrait of the Prince of
Wales (1969), 83; Lord (Peter) Hain, Labour
MP for Neath (1991-2015), Northern Ireland
secretary (2005-07), 72; Darren Henley,
chief executive, Arts Council England, 49;
Amanda Holden, actress, TV presenter and
judge, Britain’s Got Talent (since 2007), 51;
Michael Holding, cricketer, West Indies
(1975-87), 68; Carl Icahn, US hedge fund
billionaire and activist investor, 86; Eliahu
Inbal, conductor, 86; Ian Lavender, actor
best known as Private Pike in Dad’s Army
(1968-77, 2016), 76; Sir Simon Lovestone,
professor of translational neuroscience,
University of Oxford, 61; John McAslan,
architect, King’s Cross station concourse,
London (2012), 68; John McEnroe, tennis
player, Wimbledon men’s singles champion
(1981, 1983, 1984), 63; Ice-T (Tracy Marrow),
rapper, Cop Killer (1992), and actor, 64;
Elizabeth Olsen, actress, the Avengers film
series, 33; Lyn Paul, singer, the New Seekers,
and actress, 73; Howard Riley, jazz pianist
and composer, 79; Valentino Rossi,
nine-time motorcycle Grand Prix world
champion, 43; John Tams, musician and
actor, Sharpe (1993-97), 73; Andy Taylor,
musician, Duran Duran, 61; The Weeknd
(Abel Tesfaye), singer-songwriter, 32.
“When one door of happiness closes, another
opens; but often we look so long at the closed
door that we do not see the one which has
been opened for us.” Helen Keller, American
writer and social activist, We Bereaved (1929)
Nature notes
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