No. 130 - "Events, Dear Boy, Events!"

Dear James,

When Harold Macmillan asked Rab Butler, his Home Secretary, what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman, Butler replied: 'Events, dear boy, events'. We are now in one of the biggest ‘events’ in recent history. The world is in chaos, the markets are in meltdown and governments everywhere are in confusion. At least that is what it seems like. 

On Wednesday evening, Donald Trump made the ‘most expensive speech in history’ when he cancelled all flights from Europe (except for the UK!), citing the superiority of his own foresight and the ineptitude of foreign governments  in dealing with coronavirus. In response, the markets plummeted with the Dow, falling by 2,352 points over the day, or almost 10%. Yet again Trump has demonstrated his extraordinary incompetence. He has continued to call the event a hoax and failed to make enough testing kits for his people. America, with a population of about 327 million people, has tested about 8,000 people in total while South Korea, with a population of about 51 million, has tested more than 210,000 and is testing almost 20,000 people a day. Today the Director of Health of the US State of Ohio said more than 100,000 people in the state are already likely to have the coronavirus. Some hoax!

The virus is rampant. Markets are swooning. The Australian Grand Prix is cancelled. Sports events everywhere are put on hold. Schools are closed. Yesterday Boris told us all “Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” For the first time ever, there was a degree of conviction in his speech courtesy, of course, of the two experts standing on either side of him. 

But overall, what is this crisis telling us? May I make a suggestion? That James Lovelock was right. That the world is one in the face of nature and Gaia will have her revenge if provoked. And we have been provoking nature for far too long. Coronavirus originated in the overcrowded back streets of Wuhan and once released, knows no borders, makes no distinction between rich or poor, famous or infamous, male or female. Another force of nature of course, is the climate. It follows the same rules. Surely this is a wake up call for those who travel without thinking about the climate damage they are doing? Surely it is a wake-up call for the world reminding us that we are one and, as one, we should be acting together rather than splitting up into small endless factions and competing parts? 

Eventually the current situation will clarify itself and the world will have to adapt. However, it will only do this if it does not forget the current crisis. If it lasts a few weeks amnesia is more likely to set in. A few months or even a year and we have more chance of remembering and learning the correct lessons. For now, everything has been stalled but when the dust has settled, many decisions will have to be made.  China will have to decide whether it wishes to continue with its total control of information with the risks of further suppression of the facts that could have saved so many lives. The US will, at last, have to face the implications of its lack of universal medical care. Twenty seven million Americans have no medical insurance at all and are grievously exposed to coronavirus. Supply chains will have to be adapted to ensure that single sourcing of drugs from China or India will no longer put our nations at risk. And in the new populist West, politicians like Boris Johnson, will have to decide whether to ‘follow the science’ rather than rely on continued denigration of experts and reliance on fake news. Yesterday was a good start for him in that area. The experts are back and the populists are having to rely on their truths rather than the hocus pocus of their particular grievances.

And of course there may even be consequences for Brexit. The whole timetable has been thrown into chaos and we can expect to see ‘modifications’ of approach and deadlines. It would of course be too much to ask that the very essence of Brexit i.e cutting ourselves off from the world to live in much reduced circumstances for the sake of an out dated notion of national pride, would be questioned? 

It is clear that viruses are immune to lower interest rates, lower taxes or similar devices. And unlike in 2008 there has been little coordinated international action. The world is in a bit of a mess James. Doesn’t Wednesday's budget seem an eon away already?

Kind regards,

BH - Your Concerned Constituent