Moral hazards for Euro neo-libs

The Guardian is getting quite liberal again:

Frustration is justified when people flout rules designed to protect them. But the police should avoid moralising

Quite an insight here:

Most of us are likely to find reason to tut or glare at someone for breaking the rules in the coming weeks. But the police are among an extremely small number with the power to do anything about it. ..

Eventually they might also be able to distinguish the difference between, say, name-calling and actual discrimination and power in identity politics. In the short term:

Any temptation to go beyond what the law says, for example by deciding what constitutes exercise or which goods can be sold (both of which have been tried) must be strenuously resisted

Meanwhile, old habits of obedience to anything European persist: (and old rhetoric):

Extend Brexit transition by years over coronavirus, UK told [sic!]

The centre-right European People’s party (EPP), which unites the parties of 11 EU leaders, including Angela Merkel and Leo Varadkar, issued a statement on Monday calling on the government to extend the Brexit transition beyond the end of the year....Christophe Hansen, a MEP from Luxembourg [said]...“I can only hope that common sense and substance will prevail over ideology. An extension of the transition period is the only responsible thing to do.”...David McAllister, the German MEP who leads the European parliament’s work on the future relationship with the UK, said the pandemic complicated an “already very ambitious” schedule. “The ball is now clearly in the British court,” he added.

However, even the GHRaun has noticed that there might also be a few cracks appearing in 'Europe':

Without solidarity between members, the eurozone won't survive coronavirus

The Dutch-led opposition to a ‘coronabond’ to raise funds for nations hardest-hit by the pandemic is self-defeating

 At the video conference [so they can work with these] the eurobond motion came up against the eurozone’s “frugal four” – Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland – who argued that the issuance of a common debt instrument would punish the countries that had saved for such a rainy day, and encourage further fiscal mismanagement by those who did not. Solidarity, they claimed, just created moral hazard [lovely phrase for less neo-lib policies].

The former Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem gained widespread notoriety for his penny-pinching in the Greek debt negotiations, at one point appearing to suggest that his southern European neighbours had wasted their money on “booze and women”. ..the Dutch government’s position is also exceedingly hypocritical. The Netherlands has long been known as one of the world’s most infamous tax havens, siphoning off hundreds of billions of euros in corporate profits and international financial flows and keeping other governments from taxing them properly...Solidarity is not charity.

Earlier, the sainted L Elliott had noted: 

The European Central Bank has embarked on a gigantic asset purchase scheme in an attempt to flood the eurozone economy with cheap money... the crisis has highlighted the weaknesses of the eurozone: the lack of coordination between monetary policy run by the ECB from Frankfurt and fiscal policy under the control of member states; the lack of a sizeable, single budget; the absence of financial tools that would make a collective approach easier.

If ever there was a time for the EU to act as one, for the richer countries to show solidarity with those less fortunate, then this is it. Yet when Italy pleaded for fellow countries to send it medical equipment such as masks, France and Germany not only failed to respond, they placed export bans (since lifted) on the export of the kit Italian hospitals were crying out for. In the end it was left to China to show EU how to respond to a country in dire need.

Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said at the weekend: “If Europe does not rise to this unprecedented challenge, the whole European structure loses its raison d’être to the people. We are at a critical point in European history.”...That just about sums things up. The message being sent out is that Europe is a project for the good times and that when the going gets tough people can only really rely on their own government and the nation state.

Policing the virus crisis --now updated

N Cohen used to be an enjoyable read. Then came Brexit.Then the Labour leadership. And we lost him to a world of resentment, self-pity and class hatred. But now he's back with a word or two of wisdom:

We must take drastic action but let’s not turn into a nation of little tyrants

Fear is pushing us into a dictatorial future...The worst newspapers and TV channels are merely looking to incite pleasurable feelings of outraged self-righteousness ...[with]...trashy stories about hordes of egomaniacs putting everyone else’s health in danger. Their pictures of panic buyers cramming supermarket trolleys without a thought for others reflect a mere 3% of shoppers, retail market researchers found...If you saw the shots of passengers crammed into the London Underground, apparently without a care for the spread of disease, they could be taken only because the service has been so reduced that a few people pack what trains are running.

Ferguson [Govt adviser and leading Imperial College modeller]... told parliament that “very large-scale testing and contact tracing” would allow the economy to restart once the peak had passed.

The professor was euphemistically describing the replacement of the blanket dictatorship of a lockdown state with what Jeremy Cliffe of the New Statesman grimly christened “the bio-surveillance state”.... [Governments] are using surveillance technology to confine carriers of the virus and their contacts to the modern equivalents of the medieval leper colonies or Victorian tuberculosis sanatoriums.

Leap forward a month, and you can see the state requiring citizens to produce documentation showing that it is safe for them to return to normal life or travel abroad. In just three days last week, and with barely a voice raised in opposition, parliament gave the state extraordinary powers to control freedom of movement, and then shut itself down....It will matter that our police and prime minister do not want to be draconian and that the supreme court will hear urgent appeals by video link rather than running away as parliament has done.

An awareness of 'outraged self-righteousness' and 'trashy stories' in the Observer over Brexit would have been welcome.

Meanwhile, examples of police punitive zeal in the Sunday Times [subscription] :

The enforcement of social distancing sank to new depths when Derbyshire police arrived at a beauty spot known as the Blue Lagoon and poured in dye to turn it black... visitors were gathering in bright sunshine at the quarry pool in Buxton...“This type of gathering is in contravention of the current instruction of the UK government,” a police statement warned. “We used water dye to make the water look less appealing.”...Some police forces are encouraging residents to report people who breach the rules...Several rural constabularies have been turning away camper vans and caravans seeking to self-isolate in picturesque spots.

STOP PRESS:
It turns out that this story is abit skewed. The 'lagoon' is badly polluted and the local Council frequently dye it black to stop idiots swimming in it. A combination of Derbyshire sarcasm that fooled the ST, and paranoia about rozzers had me convinced. Sorry all round.

National crisis -- npb attacks nonchalance

Garuny World continues to inform by revealing more and more about the zeitgeist of the new petite bourgeoisie, the backbone of Remain (my tenuous link of the day):

Johnson has got the virus, so has the Sec of State for Health and the CMO, so at least the virus has got a sense of humour. So will the Graun go easy on a sick man, even if he only has 'mild symptoms'.No way. The told you so impulse is far too strong:

'Nonchalant': Boris Johnson accused of Covid-19 complacency 

Despite urging the nation in a solemn broadcast on Monday evening to “stay at home” where possible, Johnson continued to carry out his parliamentary duties [reckless bastard] ...Prof Susan Michie, director of the centre for behaviour change at University College London, said: “Those in leadership positions should practise what they preach....[yes matron] ...Dr John Ashton, a former regional director of Public Health England, said: “The government has been too slow to act on this, and they’ve been slow as individuals. I was surprised to see prime minister questions going ahead this week – it was clearly unnecessary [what else of Parliamentary democracy does he want to scrap] ....Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Leaders need to lead by example. It wasn’t a good thing that he was telling people that he was going around shaking hands [right at the very start] and being quite nonchalant about the virus.” 

What a bunch of nincompoops. There is still this total failure to understand stoicism, black humour, self-mocking resilience, a wish to clam up and not alarm others, anything other than a hand-wringing moral superiority, self-publicising emotional vulnerability, and support for a patronising mode of address to plebs.

More simple messages for plebs*

Older readers might remember the big issue of the day pre-corona -- the Brexit talks. Now those seem to be on hold at the official level, but parties are manoeuvring for advantage as ever:

UK-EU talks on post-Brexit relations 'in deep freeze'

Brussels laments London’s failure to table comprehensive legal text to work on

“The first big difference is that we have a fully fledged proposal in line with the political declaration while the Brits have only tabled a few things, much less than we expected”, one senior EU diplomat said.

That old dodge again, partly explicable no doubt as Briefings for Britain told us, because there is a clash between culturally-rooted French anxiety to dot every i and cross every t in any agreement, while the good old pragamatic Brits prefer to negotiate things as and when they arise. It is also a shaming strategy,as Varoufakis revealed in his book on the EC, and  cue for useful idiots to assert Brit incompetence.

There may be another vested interest at stake with serious implications for flows of money:

The two sides need to agree on whether or not to extend the transition period by “up to one or two years” before 1 July.

In the same article one interesting snippet:

The former Brexit secretary David Davis has suggested in recent days that the coronavirus pandemic would limit the damage of failing to secure a deal because trade would already have been reduced to a minimum.

 And there might be a quiet change of ground in this:

The main sticking points between the UK and the EU remain on so-called level playing field commitments to ensure that both sides retain high standards in the fields of environmental, social and labour regulations. Brussels is seeking non-regression from EU standards and for the UK to “harmonise” with Brussels on state aid rules that limit subsidies.

Apparently, these emphasised (by me) terms mean a lot to bureaucrats and are a retreat from earlier demands for 'full compliance' back towards the actual terms used in the Political Agreement.

Elsewhere, hints of a revival of confidence in some old and familiar arguments about how to campaign to win over illiterate and gullible plebs. S Sodha, the 'chief leader writer at the Observer': 

Media experts despair at Boris Johnson's coronavirus campaign

It’s easy to look at the photos from last weekend of teeming parks and crowded pubs [in some parts of London] , and attack people for being selfish and stupid [more ways to demonstrate your own superiority too]. But at least as much responsibility lies with the dire lack of a concerted public information campaign from the government [really?]

Any information campaign needs a clear instruction, wrapped up in messaging that persuades people to change their behaviour....“‘Flatten the curve’ ['meaningless jargon' for Sodha] might be the strategy but that doesn’t make it your key message. It makes the problem seem more abstract and distant from people’s lives,” Nicky Hawkins, a communications expert at the Frameworks Institute, tells me....None of the government communication has explained in simple terms why staying at home makes such a big difference to infection and hence death rates...

Shame is a dreadfully ineffective way of trying to motivate people to change their behaviour [Someone ought to tell H Freedman in the Guardian and those offering prim but vicious disapproval on the BBC -- step forward -- yes-- E Maitlis]

Dominic Cummings, made his name testing different messages in real time on Facebook to quickly ascertain which pro-Brexit messages worked [while the usual 'communications experts' failed miserably] . Yet the government has been incredibly slow off the mark in even using the free advertising it has been offered on social media.

Apart from anything else, I wonder where this journalist has been for the past week. TV and even the little bit of social media I see has been absolutely awash with nice simple explantions offered at dictation speed in primary colours by patronising petty bourgeois. Videos show us how to wash our hands,what 'self-isolate' means and how we must obey banal bullet-pointed 'rules'.

We have had lots of idiotic diagrams showing geometric progressions as models for the spread of infection, backed up by silly interviews in which even panicking health professionals claim they show that one person can (and thus will) infect 60,000 people. We've had innumerate presenters reading scripts showing us how Italy and the UK both had 233 deaths in one day last week and so the curves will replicate each other in the future (because 233 is a magic number). 

We've had only limited attempts to discuss the Imperial College model and to compare it with the much less scary Oxford model (only the Times has done that). Even my nice 'ordinary' neighbours know that the overall death rate, which makes the headlines daily , includes people who would have died anyway from 'underlying conditions' or old age, despite the publicity given to one or two exceptions.They ask who the fark decided on 2 metre exclusions and why the numbers of ventilators have suddenly become a key issue as if they were magic machines.

They have seen all sorts of self-important busybodies assume some moral high ground on the basis of some suddenly acquired shallow expertise and start lecturing the rest of us on our responsibilities to 'save the NHS'.

They might sympathise deeply with weeping nurses or patients on video begging us to stay at home -- but see them as victims rather than experts.

There is a great danger that all this simplistic stuff will become simply unbelievable again, just as Project Fear did, and only expose the patronising and deeply insincere interests behind it, to the eternal discredit of the moralisers. I don't know if opinion polls will eventually uncover this reaction as they did (and then only partly) with Brexit.

Thank God for Kettles

Father and son. The son is still providing useful material for this blog. Today he demonstrates npb anxiety about risks and how it works:

We simply don't know what kind of Britain will awake from all this 

The worst of the crisis is also yet to come....the shared experience of having the shadow of death hanging over our heads [I think 'shared' is the key word  here] ...the general anxiety about the future that is laid bare in an Ipsos-Mori survey this week.

The link takes us to a Kettle tweet citing one response from the survey, asking whether people find various tasks 'easier/same/less easy.' since the corona crisis. 'Getting what you need from the shops' is much harder -- who would have thought?- and 'staying positive about the future' and '[ditto] today' is harder too. It is such an absurd question that the 'data' might mean anything, of course. 

much of the speculation about this is struggling to adjust. Its feet are still firmly planted in the past. It is largely conditioned by earlier political divisions such as Brexit.

Dead right -- but that's because both crises tell us something about the class structure and how it is maintained by (of all ironies) social distancing (as in Bourdieu, not Boris)

Both left and right are currently guilty of acting as though nothing has really changed...It seems obvious to his critics that Johnson is the wrong man for the crisis and equally obvious to them that he is mishandling it so badly he may be overthrown. But the opinion polls don’t say that

Still puzzled about why so many people disagree with him. He misses a chance to insist there should be a GNU though.

There are still some upsides (?) in the strange world of Guardianistas:

The age of social media bragging is over. Now we are too busy knitting 

 coronavirus is still in some small ways a leveller. Only weeks ago, I wrote of the burden [luvvie] of “thrilled to announce” culture – the growing pressure to publicly declare every and any work win online. The universe [!] has since intervened, ridding us of opportunities....We are pivoting to sharing news about our personal hobbies– knitting, bread baking and gardening – instead of side hustling [what's that?]...[For example]...“PERSONAL NEWS: I’ve just made and eaten my third banana cake of the week!”

But, luckily:

there are tangible gains to be made during this strange period. The stock market may have plunged, but coronavirus has seen the clout economy [?] boom..“The Body Coach” Joe Wicks has become a household name, after conducting daily PE lessons from his living room for schoolchildren.

If that was the last offering from the Grud that I had read before succumbing to the lurgy, I would have been very cross indeed.

Now it gets really serious...

Shocking news in the Graun today:

Waitrose limits shopper numbers as physical-distancing measure 

I hadn't realised until now, but pressure on Waitrose has increased because people have 'switched from dining out to cooking at home'

P Toynbee makes a very good point (at last):

Millions of people are about to discover something they didn’t know about British life....Many who see themselves as middle class will confront the reality of Britain’s nonexistent safety net.... There is no longer a safety net. People who have paid tax and national insurance for years and never been near the social security system will be turning to it in their hour of need; yet far too late, like trapeze artists falling through the air, they will find that the net beneath them has been lowered dangerously close to the ground and is badly torn... watch the shock as millions fall on the untender mercies of the Department for Work and Pensions, to discover what happened to benefits in the past decade...New claimants confronting universal credit’s obstacles may join the half who find themselves propelled to food banks

Meanwhile, the Graun is as ambivalent as ever about identity politics. It's OK when we do even aggressive social distancing (in the Bourdieu sense) but not when others do it.

The egregious H Freeman has this:

Is it OK to shout at strangers who aren’t social distancing? Absolutely 

While another story has this:

Teenagers held for allegedly coughing at and assaulting elderly couple

Thank goodness for attempts to maintain world-class professional journalism in these difficult times:

I have a foot fetish and it makes my girlfriend feel inadequate

 

Operation Fear -- this time as a Foucault farce

If you thought Project Fear was bad enough over the three years of the Brexit campaign, then what on earth do you make of Project Corona Fear?

It has now assumed the most incredible dimensions with a libertarian Tory government threatening more and more Draconian measures and pushing more and more ludicrous advice backed by threats.

Fans of Foucault will know that the disciplinary regimes in modern capitalism focus on individuals policing themselves through an unrealistic fear of reprisals,and then, best of all, guilt. The modern penitentiary was the best institution to illustrate those practices, but there was also the clinic and the family. Baudrillard famously claimed that all that was so exaggerated and depended on such a centralised mobilisation of power that we could just forget it. I think Foucault might be playing a blinder in the second half.

It would be wearisome to actually reference all the stories. Many are found in the Times and Sunday Times. My copy today contained strong advice about what to do even in self isolation — stay 2 m apart from your loved ones, sleep in separate rooms, use separate bathrooms and towels if possible. It did not actually specify that this should be for people who actually have the infection already. The information does not distinguish the two categories either, so EVERYONE is under suspicion.

Boris Johnson banning sex — whoever would have thought it?.

The Guardian seems to relish the latest details:

Hancock accuses those still socialising in UK of being 'very selfish' 

The health secretary said stricter rules such as curfews or further closures could come into place “very soon” and urged people still socialising or going to holiday locations to “stop it, and if you don’t stop it then we’re going to have to take more measures”....“It is incredibly important that people stay more than two metres away from others wherever they are or stay at home wherever possible.

Classic self-policing here. How did a 2 metre gap come to be so 'incredibly important'. (NB it is escalating daily -- already 'more than 2 m'). Does that imply only face-to-face?  Why not 5 metres? Is 1:9 m safe if we stand at right angles? Should I feel guilty if I still work in Imperial measures?

UK could face Italy-style lockdown, warns Boris Johnson 

The public must stop congregating in public or face new coronavirus enforcement measures within 24 hours, Boris Johnson has said, amid growing concern that his previous attempts to encourage social distancing were being ignored...with London mayor Sadiq Khan and northern Ireland’s first minister Arlene Foster both endorsing stricter enforcement of the guidelines, and former northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith saying he would support any measure [sic!] that would force people to follow the guidelines.

Jury trials on hold in England and Wales due to coronavirus fears 

 Teacher assessment is replacing examinations so maybe judge-assesment will do instead?

Activists are turning to helping elderly and vulnerable people locally. It’s a political model that we should stick to

Here's your toilet roll, Mrs Danby, now let me tell you all about Jeremy Corbyn -- no, don't shut the door

Lockdown London: how much of the fabric of life can you take away before things fall apart? 

Classic npb stuff here: 

 I spent the first half-hour of Friday morning looking up competing dictionary definitions of the word  “persistent” [not caring for his wife, making breakfast, deep cleaning the cat basket, washing his hands]. My wife had woken up coughing...

[We are having a frightful time] trying to move around cities without touching handrails, occupying imaginary two-metre bubbles in the park, coveting bottles of hand sanitiser, leafleting vulnerable neighbours for shopping orders, lying awake worrying about the rent or mortgage, planning garden projects, sharing lectures in epidemiology [I bet -- tweets more likely] and crying over cancelled exams... cajoling parents and grandparents to stay indoors, keeping hands away from faces [cf banning masturbation as 'self-abuse'], going through stockpiled food too quickly, scrapping over loo roll [!], taking our temperatures, trusting official advice and not trusting official advice....my Twitter feed [I thought so] had been so full of outrage about people “carrying on as normal”...that I was moved to drive around the streets near where I live in London – through Camden and Islington and Holloway – to witness this “new Luftwaffe” [!] for myself.

In this new reality, everything can seem like a portent....Tone becomes an issue. How do you check in with a friend who may or may not have lost their livelihood overnight?...I’m a catastrophiser anyway...The Portuguese waitress [I thought you were not supposed to go to cafes?], chatting about what it all might mean, and still hopeful that they could get through, had recommended I read José Saramago’s fable Blindness

 These people urged us to Remain!

And finally:

Coronavirus: the Guardian's promise to our readers 

Together we can find a way through this crisis, providing accurate and insightful reporting and listening to you, our readers

..we will bring some hope. With clarity and imagination, we will find a way to build a better society, and a new and fairer way to live. ...We need your support so we can keep delivering quality journalism that’s open and independent. And that is here for the long term. Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable. Support the Guardian from as little as £1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

Return of an old friend

The GUardian/Observer must be getting as fed up with coronoa as I am, so they re-ran an old component of Project Fear, last seen at the height of the Great Campaigns for Democracy and Parliamentary Coups:

US trade deal ‘could flood Britain with toxic cosmetics’

chemical substances [another sinister term] freely available in US products but banned in the UK include formaldehyde, a carcinogen used in hair-straightening treatments, nail polish and eyelash glue; parabens, which are used in skin and hair products and have a tendency to mimic oestrogen in the body, disrupting the hormonal system [see below]; p-Phenylenediamine, an organic compound derived from coal tar and used in hair dyes which can trigger severe allergic reactions; triclosan, an antibacterial agent used in soaps and toothpastes which is believed to spread antibiotic resistance [it's not alone there, of course] ; and phthalates which are found in perfumes and shampoo and can lower semen quality [what real-life uses are implied here, I wonder] .

The original scare story I read also implicated deodorants in breast cancer, I recall -- I think those have been withdrawn now. I like the calm Guradian objectivity of 'flood' and 'toxic'. The scary stuff is from a press relase by Global Justice Now, who has campaigned against big pharma and various toxic chemicals like those in weedkiller.

I first saw this particular issue discussed on Facebook I think. The ensuing discussion argued that: (a) harmful substances would still be banned in the UK or withdrawn by companies themselves keen not to get sued; (b) users had plenty of choice in cosmetics and would not be forced to use US products; (c) the EC has only recently changed its mind about the safety of things like parabens.

A spokesman for the Department for International Trade said: “The government has been very clear that any future trade deal must work for UK consumers and businesses, upholding our high regulatory standards. The UK’s reputation for quality, safety and performance is what drives demand for UK goods and is key to our long-term prosperity. We have no intention of harming this reputation in pursuit of a trade deal.”

Meanwhile, let's hear it for a group of unsung heroes:

'The biggest story ever': how journalists are coping with Covid-19

Some reporters are under enormous pressure as the coronavirus news pours in relentlessly – while for others, work has dried up completely

Art against corona (and AIDS, Trump and Brexit)

Only corona news again today. I wish I had started a corona blog! Please take this as further research on the new petitite bourgeoisie's cultural politics. This is an American writer hitting up in teh Graun

Why are the rich and famous getting coronavirus tests while we aren't? 

 over the past, terrifying week – a week which has set the foundation of modern life shaking like the San Andreas fault – we have seen a slew of beloved celebrities solemnly, dutifully announcing that they have received a positive test result for Covid-19. Idris Elba, Tom Hanks, Kevin Durant, Daniel Dae Kim [who he?]... these celebrity Covid-19 tests have happened alongside a broader failure to test everyday citizens and residents in the US and the UK, including medical workers, those in at-risk groups, and those experiencing serious, even hospitalization-requiring symptoms.

Strategically allocating tests [permitting all sorts of lobbying] would save countless lives; allocating tests on the basis of wealth and access will mean lives lost across every socioeconomic demographic.

Testing is just one part of the class story unfolding...The wealthy and the powerful are counting on us not paying attention.

Right sort of question, of course, but no equipment to answer it (rich and powerful = celebs)  and a barely concealed vested interest  ('strategic' allocations).

There is also this coming from the Dead Arty fraction of the npb 

Feeling overwhelmed? How art can help in an emergency by Olivia Laing 

Long before the arrival of Covid-19, the speed and contents of the news had made me feel almost overwhelmed with fear. Faced with a flood of images that includes migrant children in cages, melting glaciers and forest fires, it has felt impossible to process information, let alone assess the best way to react....a superabundance of potential threats – running from Islamic State to nuclear war, the rise of the far right, Brexit, environmental catastrophe and now a global pandemic – is matched by a dearth of time in which to process them [classic npb reaction to risk]...Logging into Twitter or following the rolling news has meant being trapped in a spin-cycle of hypervigilant anxiety.

Empathy is not something that happens to us when we read War and Peace. It’s work [luvvie!]  for which art can, however, provide us with radiant materials. ..One of the pleasures of Bleak House is that it’s a drama about the act of information-gathering itself, slowly and laboriously producing clarity and order out of lies, misinformation and occlusion....As the poet Anne Boyer observes in a much-shared essay about coronavirus, “fear educates our care for each other... I am not the least bit afraid of this kind of fear [sic], for fear is a vital and necessary part of love.”

As examples of this therapeutic art stuff:  

In 1989, the American artist and Act Up activist David Wojnarowicz posed for a famous photograph. He gazes furiously at the camera, his lips sutured with five loose stitches...the image possesses an uncanny power. 

Or:

Inside, there was lavish evidence that a horrible crime had been committed. Mendieta was tied to the table, half-naked, her underwear around her ankles. Blood dripped on the floor. The students stayed an hour and for the entire time she didn’t move a muscle.

And:

The night before Trump’s inauguration, I saw the trans poet Eileen Myles read their own version of a presidential address at the London Review Bookshop ...I have the same feeling when I look at photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans or read a novel by Ali Smith. I had it when I went to see my friend Rich’s degree show at Goldsmiths and he’d made dozens of ceramic razor clams and anemones, downed planes and nubbly coral reefs.

At the end of a long piece is this:

 Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing is published on 16 April by Picador (RRP £20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15.

 

Brexit and Corona converge on Barnier as GNU reappears

Hilarious news from the Graun,even though I shouldn't really laugh:

Coronavirus live news: EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier tests positive

That man will do anything to keep us in Europe.

And, never one to miss a chance, the persistently dripping M Kettle:

Defeating the Covid-19 crisis could need a wartime coalition government 

Johnson and Dominic Cummings still imagine they will be able to spin their way through the crisis and resume their interrupted election agenda. But they would be wrong...The country has been deeply divided by austerity and Brexit. That’s why, just as in 1915 and 1940, it may eventually feel inevitable for Labour and even the SNP to be brought into a governing coalition in some way.

The return of the pro-EC GOAT or GNU, and JIT 

Equally hilarious class-struggle news in the Times [subscription] today:

Affluent families desperate to escape towns and cities are offering tens of thousands of pounds to the owners of country properties around Britain to find sanctuary in the coronavirus crisis....Some have offered to pay a year’s rent up front. Guy Bradshaw of UK Sotheby’s International, said some were willing to pay £50,000 a month. The idea has not been popular with people living in the areas.

And in the Grud

As Parisians flee to countryside, rural-dwellers accuse them of spreading infection and emptying shops 

Expect npb outrage because they won't be able to compete with those prices. Should be first come first served -- or interview with the authorities?

COVID-19 and class politics

An older item from the Graun (I spent the last two days wrapping the house in cling film)

Good news for a nation that loves bickering: coronavirus is the new Brexit

one harsh and jewel-like truth: coronavirus is Brexit now....You remember Brexit, don’t you? A while ago now. Started in 2016 as a joke and then it backfired so hard we had to have Theresa May as prime minister. Brexit is done now – in that we have exited Europe and ruined three consecutive Christmases by arguing about it. But just as we were going to get down to the nitty-gritty of actually going into free-trade freefall, coronavirus happened. And – seamlessly – the point-scoring back-and-forth of domestic Brexit arguments has moved on to that.

any announcement of action on Johnson’s part would be under feverish scrutiny...this does immediately create two defined opposing groups: on one side, mindless tub thumpers of government agenda who would back anything Johnson says because he broadly represents them (in the Brexit analogy, these are the most likely to stand over a mass grave and say, “Coronavirus won, get over it”); on the other, people who would like to hear a bit more from the scientists, please.

[but] we now have terms such as “herd immunity” and “80% infection rate” and “second wave” being thrown around by people who, and I’m speaking from personal experience, have read about three-and-a-half articles about it

Intended to be quirky and morale-raising no doubt, but revealing about new petite bourgeois culture and politics as well . It is oppositional and distancing virtue-signalling, disdainful of both upward and downward groups. It has to find new issues if the old ones fade -- anything will do really, whatever is trending.  It bases itself on 'common sense' and 'what everyone knows' with a disdain for experts too: I am surprised the people he knows have read any articles and not just social media posts by novelists on a journey and urban poets.

Brexit and Corona -- both produced by 'booming bluffers'

Some valiant attempts to say I told you so from the Observer this week. First :

Brexit means coronavirus vaccine will be slower to reach the UK

And it will cost more here because of the UK pulling out of the European Medicines Agency on 30 December
• Three experts explain why Brexit leaves the UK less able to respond to pandemic

Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it, and on less-favourable terms....The UK has already withdrawn from the EU’s emergency bulk-buying mechanism for vaccines and medicines, under which member states strike collective agreements with pharmaceutical companies, which speeds up their access to the latest products during a crisis.

So where do we start. (1) there will be a shortage of a yet-to-exist vaccine, even after December, (2) the UK will be dependent on EU supplies of this vaccine.(3) The EU would be happy to see the UK awash with Covid-19 because the virus will not cross borders or mutate.

There are some other 'ifs':

“The UK could, in theory, choose to recognise any approval decision made by the EMA to prevent delays, but this seems at odds with the UK government’s pledge to ‘take back control’. If the UK authorities instead choose to set up a separate review and approval process for medicines and vaccines, then it might delay access to a new coronavirus therapy.

The UK Government seems a bit unmoved, maybe for reasons uncovered by A Rawnsley (below) :

 A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The UK and our friends and partners across Europe are part of a concerted international effort to combat the threat of COVID-19. We are confident that our current close working relationships will continue as we ready ourselves for all eventualities. We’re fully supporting the UK’s world-leading, disease research sector to play a key role in the global effort, with £40 million of new funding for rapid research into the virus.”

The same story appeared earlier (but with different hacks). Both are rendered as 'news',reporting the publication of the actual article above:

 Another go:

 Britain and the EU are facing calls to back away from a “game of chicken” and extend the Brexit transition period immediately, as both respond to the coronavirus pandemic....[These calls come from]...an SDLP politician in Northern Ireland’s assembly...“Right now, I’m loth to even mention Brexit,” he tweeted. “But, as of today, the UK government is still ruling out extending transition. That is lunatic. The world will soon be recovering from a huge economic shock. No one – not the EU or even Trump’s US – will have time for Brexiter fantasies.”

 and a very funny cartoon

A Rawnsley pursues the anti-Johnson line in the usual way, by comparing his populism to Trump's -- and then ridiculing Trump's

The prime minister has been flattered by comparison with Donald Trump...[a man whose] ... multiple flaws are being pitilessly highlighted by a crisis [that] ..a man who does not believe in scientific evidence or international cooperation is hopelessly ill-equipped to handle....Mr Johnson has often aped Trumpian populism [and thus must ape his incompetence as well]...[but] he is smart enough to grasp that something more grown up is now required.

So he is a smart incompetent, who is a populist 'listening intently to the science'. Even D Cummings apparently is 'a fervent admirer of science'. This poses a problem for Rawnsley, focused on the decision not to follow other European countries's policies -- widely seen by liberals as a part of Johnsonian arrogance and Europhobia but based on:

...scientific reasoning... that more draconian steps won’t make that much difference at this stage, are not sustainable over the longer term, and may well turn out to be counterproductive because it will lead to a second wave of infections when restrictions are eased...My conversations have convinced me that the British approach is rooted in scientific logic and a careful calibration of the different risks.

 Thank goodness we still have the hope that Trump will not do as well:

 One of the possible positives to come out of this crisis – I put it no higher than possible at this stage – is that it will decrease the public appetite for bombastic charlatans and increase demand for serious leaders who respect expertise. If it does, that will be bad for populist hucksters more generally.

Finally N Cohen is quite revealing about the npb take on risk:

Only the unlucky think about luck. Lucky people can fail to realise that luck exists. They think they have succeeded on merit, or they have thrived because of their good character or lovable personality. As comfortable people, they revolt against the thought that their comfort can ever end and their lives are contingent.

 But he puts his finger on a real anxiety here, a worry that:

the greatest divide is not between rich and poor, but between the healthy and the sick.  

This ignores the link between health and wealth -- but 'evidence' on economic inequalities has never been a particualrly strong point and flakey anxieties are well established in so many other areas.

So N Cohen wants a daddy to reassure him, a strong man to take charge. It might not work, but the npb will need to take fewer organic calming herbal remedies and reduce the risk of them running out in Waitrose:

I’m simply saying that if you are sick and facing the prospect of death, the state is the only institution with the means and responsibility to help you....The British government believes we are still the country of last month’s booming bluffers [no mention of scientific advice]. It fears that, if it orders lockdowns now, fatigue will set in and the public will be breaking the curfews as the illness peaks....My Italian friends say that, even in a country where suspicion of government is imbibed from childhood, 80% back the government’s decision to lock down the country. They support it because “we’re so frightened”.