Paying the piper

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The idea that a minister can decide to lie, lie and lie again to the House of Commons and the government will then pay almost a quarter of a million pounds for legal advice to help him respond to the committee investigating his lies without further incriminating himself ought to be outrageous. The decision to lie was his and his alone; Johnson should face the consequences of his actions, and if he feels he needs legal advice to try and wriggle off the hook, he should be paying for it himself, although I know that he finds the idea that he should ever pay for anything to be a strange one. The situation is, however, a little different when it comes to the Covid inquiry. This is an inquiry into who did what and when during the pandemic, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable – in principle at least – that the government should receive legal advice and support and that that support should be extended to those who were ministers at the time.

Except that we’re dealing with Johnson here. As I understand this week’s events, the lawyers appointed by and paid for by the government were working on preparing the various papers and documents requested by the inquiry, and came across entries in those documents which suggested potential illegalities on the part of the former PM. They reported those to their client, which is the cabinet office (since they are paying the legal fees), and civil servants in the cabinet office decided that the appropriate course of action in the case of alleged illegalities was to inform the relevant authorities – in this case, the police. At this point, the former PM seems to have gone ballistic and declared that he no longer wished to be represented by those lawyers, but would appoint his own. What he seems to have expected is that, having uncovered evidence of law-breaking, the lawyers should have spoken only to him, and kept that evidence secret, especially from those who were actually paying the lawyers, even if doing so might undermine the government’s own collective case. It is – or should be – an utterly unrealistic expectation, and the same goes for his belief that the government should now pay for him to appoint his own lawyers, answerable only to him.

The conflict of interest is obvious. The risk to Johnson of presenting a case which ignores some evidence, glosses over other evidence, and depends on him continuing to lie and obfuscate is purely reputational. And to the extent that he has any reputation to lose, he simply doesn’t care, as he has shown time and again. The risk to the lawyers of presenting a case which might run counter to the interests of those paying them, and includes a demand that they cover up any criminal activity which might come to light, is also reputational, but the difference is that they’re likely to care very much about that. But the biggest risk falls on the public purse: the cabinet office is being asked to give an open-ended commitment to pay for a case which puts Johnson’s personal interests above those of the government, which presents evidence which has not been shared with the government and which might undermine the government’s own case, which excludes any evidence that Johnson might not want to include, and over the costs of which they have no control.

He who pays the piper usually calls the tune, but what Johnson wants, as ever, is for someone else to pay the piper whilst he calls the tune – and a tune, at that, which could run directly against the interests of those paying the piper. In his letter to the inquiry chair, Johnson said that he was in the process of appointing new lawyers, but that the Cabinet Office had yet to “agree funding and other practical arrangements”, which raises the question: has Sunak got the guts to tell him to pay for his own lawyers this time?

A Covid surge wouldn't be the best Christmas present

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Wales’ First Minister has supported the idea that the four administrations within the UK should develop a common set of rules governing the Christmas period. The idea seems to have started with the Lib Dems (which ought to be surprising given that they claim to be the party of federalism, both in internal party matters and for the UK as a matter of policy: federal freedom for each administration to make its own decisions as long as they all make the same decision seems more than a little odd). Whatever, in principle, the idea is sensible; but then keeping the four administrations aligned would have been sensible throughout, if only one of the four hadn’t decided that it was going to make rogue and reckless decisions and expect the others to follow.

And that brings us to the problem with the proposal – how do we decide which set of rules suits all four administrations if the position in relation to the virus is different? Minimising the premature loss of life would suggest that the common regulations should be as stringent as those set by the worst-placed administration at the time, whilst maximising opportunities for family gatherings would suggest that they should be set according to the needs of the best-placed administration at the time. In practice, though, we know that one of the four administrations – the biggest – will simply set its rules and expect the others to follow. Their idea of a negotiated agreement looks more like the dictation practice which I remember from my school days.

There’s still two months to go and a lot could change in that time, but, as things stand, falling in line with England doesn’t look like the smartest idea either Mark Drakeford or the Lib Dems have ever had. With its lackadaisical approach to taking action, England is currently suffering the worst surge anywhere in the UK. One study estimates that the number of infections has now reached 100,000 per day, and is doubling every 9 days – a rate of progress which would see a million infections per day by the end of November if more drastic action is not taken. Official figures are unlikely ever to record that sort of level – to record a million positives per day would require doing several millions of tests per day, well beyond any foreseeable capacity. Long before then, they will reach a point in England where most cases are simply going undetected.

Perhaps Johnson will come to his senses and act before England gets to that point, although his current stubbornness isn’t a good sign. It looks, rather, as though he’s resorted to a policy of herd immunity by inactivity. With a population of 56 million in England and a rate of infection of 1 million a day by the end of November, the number of people infected by Christmas would exceed the threshold (believed to be somewhere between 60 and 80%) at which herd immunity (if contracting the virus actually delivers immunity at all – currently a very large unknown) kicks in; there’d be few people left to infect. It’s no longer inconceivable that that is the deliberate policy of the English government. Any vaccine would be too late to have any impact.

There are two major problems with a policy of herd immunity. The first is that big unknown mentioned above – does contracting the virus actually deliver immunity at all, and if so, for how long? The second is that – and this is something that advocates of herd immunity aren’t very forthcoming about – pursuing such a policy in the absence of a vaccine necessarily results in a substantial number of premature deaths. That’s the way nature works; the vulnerable succumb and those that are left are those who withstood the onslaught. It’s not easy to put a precise number on it, of course, and numbers are very impersonal and abstract in any event: we're dealing with real people and real families here. Early indications were that around 1% of those contracting the virus died of it. Assuming that only 60% of 56 million are infected before the spread of the virus is checked, that would result in around 336,000 premature deaths. If the rate of 1% has been overstated because of undetected infections, and if we now know enough about treating patients to be able to reduce the death rate, then even if those two factors halved the number of premature deaths, we’d still be looking at reaching a total of 168,000 – more than an extra 100,000 from where we are today – in England over a period of a few months. And that's using the optimistic assumptions set out above – other scenarios are calculable.

I find it hard – extremely hard – to believe that even the current English government would seriously opt for such a policy, but their actions to date are not very reassuring. If they haven’t formally opted for that approach, they seem to be drifting into it almost by accident and paralysis. So, whilst I agree in principle with Drakeford about having a common approach over Christmas, Wales should be extremely wary about committing to following England (which is what it effectively means) unless and until the English government changes course. Otherwise, we’ll just be opening the gates once again and the pain of the current lockdown will have been wasted.

Half-honest isn't much of an improvement

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In a strange few days, both Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage have been caught out telling half the truth; and being halfway honest is a huge step forward for both of them, although I doubt that it will last for long.

In Johnson’s case, he has been claiming that a future trade deal with the EU will be easy because the UK and the EU start from a position of complete alignment on rules and regulations.  The second part of that is the true part; the first part is only true to the extent that it is his intention that the regulatory alignment will continue.  And given that his whole rationale for Brexit is to end that regulatory alignment, it turns the easiest deal in history into the hardest, because it is the first time ever, as far as I’m aware, that two trading blocs have deliberately set out to negotiate a weakening of trade ties between them.  It’s a point which Michel Barnier has already made.

In Farage’s case, he has claimed that consumers and businesses will all benefit from lower prices once the EU tariffs between the UK and the rest of the world are lifted.  And he’s right, of course he is, to argue that if goods on which tariffs are currently paid can be imported free of tariffs, then those buying them will be able to benefit from lower prices.  There is an unstated assumption, though, which is that the buying power of those consumers and businesses remains unaltered.  However, if cheaper goods compete with UK produced goods and UK producers subsequently go out of business, than those employed by them will see their buying power reduced.  It won’t affect everyone (we can be reasonably certain that the likes of Farage and Johnson will not be impacted), but an increase in company failures with a consequent reduction in total employment reduces overall buying power. Many individual consumers may not be affected, but others will be dramatically impacted.  And on the basis of many economic studies, the probability is that those most directly and significantly affected will be precisely those who were persuaded to vote for this 'new improved' future.

Both men are clearly selling cakeism to the electorate at large – the idea that there are no trade-offs and that we can enjoy all the benefits without the costs.  It’s a con trick, of course; but con tricks work, and many are taken in by them.  Contrary to popular belief, the most successful cons aren’t like the one in The Sting which targeted a single rich crook; they depend instead on taking comparatively small sums from large numbers of honest individuals.  Those individuals are often those who can least afford to lose anything but are also most in need of the good fortune which the conman promises them.  They fall prey because they want to believe that they are being offered a way out.  A desperate person would sooner believe a promise of great fortune than a cold hard analysis of the reality facing them.  Both Johnson and Farage instinctively understand this – just look at which electors they are targeting in the coming election.

How did I miss that?

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One of the key events in the political assassination of Boris Johnson was the (accidental?) release of an e-mail from Gove’s wife, encouraging the assassin to stand up for himself and demand a firm promise of a specific major role in any Johnson cabinet.  It looked more than a little pushy, and gave the impression, as presented, that this was all about personal ambition.

It was only a few days later that I saw a bit more context to the demand.  It seems that some of the press barons – notably Dacre and Murdoch – were more than a little nervous about a Johnson administration, but had somehow signalled that their jitters might be reduced by having a calming influence such as Gove in a prominent position.  (Why they’d see Gove as a calming influence is another question entirely, but I suppose all things are relative.)

It puts a different perspective on the issue, of course.  But the funny thing is this: during the referendum campaign, amongst all the calls to ‘take control’ away from the ‘unelected Brussels bureaucrats’, I can’t recall the leave side ever telling us that they wanted to give unelected press barons the right of veto over who should be prime minister.  I wonder how I missed that.