The state is back in 2020 "THE YEAR OF TRUTH"

But it never went away . . .

The print edition of the Guardian today runs the story by Alexandra Topping below, pubished on line (Tue 19 May 2020) under the headline:

"The state is back" - TUC chief calls for new unity

Re:LODE Radio chooses to quote in full, this and other articles in this post, because the issues raised, and the positions explained, are so relevant to the Re:LODE Radio project during 2020 "THE YEAR OF TRUTH".

Alexandra Topping writes:

The leader of the Trades Union Congress has declared “the state is back” as the UK’s biggest unions urged the government to form a national recovery council in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The TUC, which represents 48 unions in England and Wales, has called in a report for the establishment of the body, which it argues would bring together government, unions and employers to create a greener and fairer economy.

In an interview with the Guardian, the TUC general secretary said there could be no return to business as usual after the pandemic.

“We’ve got to get that safety net strung again, we’ve got to invest in our public services, which may have to build resilience for a long time to come,” Frances O’Grady said. “Unions are back … but the state is back too.”

Launching the report alongside the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, on Wednesday, the TUC is calling for a return of the unity shown in the years after the second world war, arguing that the post-conflict decade of social investment created growth of 3.3%, but a decade of austerity after the banking crash resulted in growth of 1.9%.

“This can’t be about working people paying the price again,” said O’Grady. “I think there is a real sense that this has got to be a people’s effort. It can’t just be left to employers or politicians, we’ve got to step up too.”

The TUC, which represents 5.5 million members, is also calling for an overhaul of the UK’s business model – which it argues is based on low-paid, insecure jobs and the exclusion of workers from decision-making. It has called for an increase in the minimum wage to £10 an hour, a public sector pay rise, a ban on zero-hours contracts and a job guarantee scheme – particularly for young people facing a bleak future.

In the far-reaching document the TUC argues that systems for trade and finance damage the interests of poorer countries and drive unfair pay, and calls for changes to international rules and institutions, as well as a plan to tackle discrimination faced by black and minority ethnic people, women and disabled people.

It praises the government’s “constructive” work with unions on the creation of the job retention scheme, adding that the ability of local authorities to take homeless people off the street, the emergence of mutual support groups and the adaptability of the workforce, as well as government interventions, “show the speed and scale of what can be done when it is necessary”. It adds that the same commitment and urgency must be applied to tackling the climate emergency.

“We’ve run out of excuses about creating a carbon-free economy,” said O’Grady.

Industry bailouts and any state investment in the next few months must come with an “Olympics-style plan” for jobs and a minimum requirement for the use of UK products and services to rebuild UK manufacturing, says the report. With unemployment levels set to increase dramatically, it argues jobless people should be given a “funded individual learning account” to learn new skills, with the promise of a job at the end of training.

“We’ve got to build back brick by brick, but it has to be fair, decent rewards, fair taxes – all of that has got to be back on the agenda,” said O’Grady. “I think the centre of gravity has shifted and people are remembering why equality matters.”

TUC - Changing the world of work for good - A Better Recovery

Key recommendations

A plan to get Britain growing out of the crisis – and stop mass unemployment

The pandemic alone did not cause this economic crisis. It was made worse by a decade of austerity and the government’s failure to strengthen the UK’s economy. Choosing the wrong approach to recovery now risks embedding low growth, long-term unemployment and all the social ills that go alongside.

An investment for growth approach means taking action on six key areas:

• Decent work and a new way of doing business: New business models based on fairer employment relationships. A fairer share for workers of the wealth they create, with a higher minimum wage and new collective bargaining rights.

• Sustainable industry: Economic stimulus for a just transition to net zero carbon. Rebuilding the UK’s industrial capacity with modern tech and training in new skills.

• A real safety net: Reforms to social security to provide help faster and prevent poverty. A job guarantee scheme so everyone can work and long-term unemployment does not take hold.

• Rebuilding public services: Bringing our public services back to full strength, with decent pay for those who looked after us in the crisis, and a new focus on good jobs and direct employment in social care.

• Equality at work: Specific actions to make sure women, disabled people and BME groups do not suffer disproportionately from the impact of the coronavirus recession.

• Rebuilding internationalism: New international rules must prioritise decent jobs and public services for all.

The evidence from the post-war recovery is that this investment for growth recovery plan can pay for itself. Millions of working families with higher disposable income create the economic demand needed for strong growth and healthy public finances. Stronger public services and an effective safety net will support people to start and grow businesses, and will better protect against a future pandemic.

Alexandra Topping interviews Frances O'Grady for the Guardian, ahead of today's publication of the TUC plan for A Better Recovery, with shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds, (Tue 19 May 2020) under a headline with the quotation:

'this crisis has made us question everything'

Alexandra Topping writes:

Boris Johnson has made much of being at the helm of a supposed “wartime” government during the coronavirus crisis. The enemy is deadly, he tells us, and we have all been enlisted in the fight.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has had enough of the bombast. “But if we’re using war analogies,” she says, “there have been times during this crisis which have had the feeling of the first world war, with the army generals camped hundreds of miles from the front line ordering troops over the top.”

In O’Grady’s view, it is the collaboration and progressive spirit of the post-1945 years that provides a better model. To that end, on Wednesday, alongside the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, she will call for a “national recovery council” of unions, government and business. The next few years must see an increase in the minimum wage, a ban on zero-hours contracts and a job guarantee scheme – particularly for young people facing a bleak future, she says.

“The big challenge is what happens next and it’s important to have representatives of the workforce at the table to figure that out,” says O’Grady, speaking exclusively to the Guardian. “We can be architects, I think, of the next stage.”

This has been an extraordinary time for the TUC, which since the crisis struck has collaborated with the government to an extent unimaginable a few months ago. But with teaching unions in a deadlock with ministers over the proposed limited return to schools at the start of June and employees who can’t work from home already told to return to their workplaces, does she worry unions could be used as a scapegoat for the UK’s stilted exit from lockdown?

“I think the public trusts us and our members trust us,” she says. “Our first duty of care is to working people, and there is nothing more fundamental than people staying healthy and safe.”

O’Grady is insistent that “there can be no going back to business as usual” when the crisis passes and the fallout begins. Cuts to the welfare state and public services over a decade of austerity left the UK unable to deal with the seismic shock of a global pandemic, she argues. Black people in England and Wales are more than four times as likely to die of coronavirus, with poverty and health inequality mooted as possible reasons.

“We now know the real price of inequality,” says O’Grady. “This time working people can’t pay the price for recovery. People will not put up with that. I think the big issue is how do we grow our way out of this and what kinds of industries and jobs will help us do that.”

Rebuilding will require investment, not cuts – and that will have to mean fairer taxes, she adds. “We’ve got to get that safety net strung again, we’ve got to invest in our public services, which may have to build resilience for a long time to come,” she says. “Unions are back … but the state is back too.”

The need for “a healthy, secure and green economy” with quality skilled jobs is “not a pipe dream, it’s a necessity,” she says. “We have built hospitals in days, have had to radically transform the way we live and work within days. I think we’ve run out of excuses about creating a carbon-free economy.”

In practice that will mean building domestic supply chains, expanding renewable power, manufacturing batteries for electric cars, she says. If critical industries like aviation need bailing out, there must be strings attached. As firms slash entry level jobs by a quarter , job guarantee schemes – “proper ones, not Mickey Mouse schemes” – particularly for young people, will have to be put in place. It should mean, she adds, an increase in the minimum wage to £10 an hour, plus an end to zero-hours contracts and “false” self-employment where workers have no rights.

TUC analysis shows women make up three-quarters of key workers, who are worse paid, on average, than those in other sectors (four in 10 key workers earn less than £10 an hour, compared to three in 10 non key workers). In social care – where one in four workers are on zero-hours contracts – that figure rises to seven.

“These are people doing some of the most valuable work in society for the least money, who are still even today wrapping themselves in bin bags because of a lack of PPE,” says O’Grady. “What does that say about us?”

O’Grady is not a tub-thumper. But asked to rate the government’s performance so far she is quietly damning. “I think there have been a string of failures,” she says. “We were late on lockdown, late on mass testing [and] PPE. We’ve got the highest number of deaths in Europe. This was not a success and they’ve got to learn lessons.”

There is still no plan for the mass provision of PPE for a workforce, a significant proportion of whom have already been sent back to work. “It is going to have to happen fast or it will slow the recovery down quite badly because safety must come first,” she says. “It is possible to rebuild and to be safe. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to protect livelihoods and lives.”

O’Grady says the prime minister was “clearly irresponsible” to tell those who could not work from home to return to their workplaces without a clear plan in place. There was a worry among unions and business leaders in the week leading up to 10 May, that he might make a “cavalier unilateral announcement,” she says, but there was still shock when it appeared that people had been told to go back to work with 12-hours notice.

“I can only assume that this was an attempt to appease the laissez faire advocates on his backbenches and no doubt in cabinet too,” she says. “But it was counterproductive and backfired big time.

“It would be bad enough to gamble with the safety of any particular group of workers – but this is actually about public health. If it winds up with a group of workers unnecessarily exposed to the risk of infection, the likelihood is that it will spread to public transport workers, families and communities. You know, I really hope that [decision] hasn’t jeopardised people’s health.”

The TUC were critical of draft post-lockdown workplace rules, and after weeks of intense negotiations with business secretary Alok Sharma, civil servants and business leaders – although not the prime minister himself – O’Grady broke ranks, saying there were “huge gaps” over protective kit and testing.

There have since been significant improvements, she says. Companies have been told to publish risk assessments, the Health and Safety Executive has been given a £14m funding boost while employers have been told they are responsible for providing PPE if physical distancing is not possible.

But there is a long road ahead. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has publicly rejected a return to austerity, telling parliament that the government’s “levelling-up” agenda would take priority. O’Grady insists unions want to work with the government, and have demonstrated they are constructive and useful, but asks those at the top to show some humility and accept that they might not have all the answers.

“This crisis has made us question everything,” she says. “It’s shown that we are going to look after our families, but we want to look after our neighbours too. We have to shift the balance of power. It can’t just be a case of the boardroom says, and everybody else does. I think we’ve learned [that] social solidarity matters.”

Business as usual?

O’Grady says the prime minister was “clearly irresponsible” to tell those who could not work from home to return to their workplaces without a clear plan in place.

This section of O’Grady's interview above, refers to Boris Johnson, the UK's Prime Minister, making a "presidential" (as in "Trump of Doom") broadcast to the nation on Sunday 10 May (Johnson doesn't bother with telling parliament, or anyone, who needs to know in advance what the governments plans are), and leaving everyone more confused and worried than before. The section of the graph used in the broadcast has the rise in Covid-19 cases depicted in RED, and the very long tail of the post-peak Covid-19 cases, projecting into a future, where projected numbers remain eye-wateringly high, outnumbering the RED, is coloured a much calmer BLUE.

The Little Britain actor and comedian Matt Lucas posted a short parody of the Prime Minister's broadcast on a social media platform, that "went viral", and was taken up and further distributed by the mainstream UK press.

Matt Lucas has the last words . . .

. . . something or other?

Q. Is this an example of squandering national support and political capital?
A. Yes! 

Frances O’Grady, believes that this "performance" was to keep his "masters" happy, and getting the country back to work and business as usual. To quote, again, from the Guardian interview:

“I can only assume that this was an attempt to appease the laissez faire advocates on his backbenches and no doubt in cabinet too,” she says. “But it was counterproductive and backfired big time.

The economic argument that Frances O’Grady, and the TUC are making is predicated on the historical example of;

"the unity shown in the years after the second world war, arguing that the post-conflict decade of social investment created growth of 3.3%, but a decade of austerity after the banking crash resulted in growth of 1.9%."

The Labour government that took power in 1945, with a landslide electoral victory, had been a part of the wartime cross party coalition, and knew how to get things done. This included creating the National Health Service, nationalising industries, including the railways, coal and steel, and laying the foundations for universal education and a "welfare state". The last four decades have seen the dismantling of this kind of state, along with the hope and aspiration for a progressive fair and equal society. This dismantling process has been promoted and advanced by rightwing thinktanks, supporting significant political and industrial interests, both nationally and internationally, and, on occasions, against national interests.

The free market ideologues, that occupy these rightwing thinktanks, are well paid, but are, just like the rest, grist to the mill, and a mill that includes the climate change denial machine. 

Ultimately, the ideological conviction of free-marketeers is, for those who play the part of the cogs in this machine, is based either on a fantasy, a fallacy of such gigantic proportion, or worse, a hoax, a cynical ploy. As Ha-Joon Chang says in the introduction to his book:

23 THINGS THEY DON'T TELL YOU ABOUT CAPITALISM:

We do not live in the best of all possible worlds. If different decisions had been taken, the world would have been a different place. Given this, we need to ask whether the decisions that the rich and the powerful take are based on sound reasoning and robust evidence. Only when we do that can we demand right actions from corporations, governments and international organizations. Without our active economic citizenship, we will always be the victims of people who have greater ability to make decisions, who tell us that things happen because they have to and therefore that there is nothing we can do to alter them, however unpleasant and unjust they may appear. (p. xvii)

And the first "Thing" he tells the reader is:

Thing 1.

There is no such thing as a free market

What they tell you:

Markets need to be free. When the government interferes to dictate what market participants can or cannot do, resources cannot flow to their most efficient use. If people cannot do the things they find most profitable, they lose the incentive to invest and innovate. Thus, if the government puts a cap on house rents, landlords lose the incentive to maintain their properties or build new ones. Or, if the government restricts the kinds of financial products that can be sold, two contracting parties that may both have benefited from innovative transactions that fulfil their idiosyncratic needs cannot reap the potential gains of free contract. People must be left 'free to choose', as the title of free-market visionary Milton Friedman's famous book goes.

What they don't tell you:

The free market doesn't exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. How 'free' a market is cannot be objectively defined. It is a political definition. The usual claim by free-market economists that they are trying to defend the market from politically motivated interference by the government is false. Government is always involved and those free-marketeers are as politically motivated as anyone. Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined 'free market' is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

The "they" in Ha-Joon Chang's explanation are the rightwing thinktanks, academics, pundits, journalists and lobby groups that no-one voted for, but are able, without much constriction, to buy their way to where they want to be, using politics and politicians. The function of the rightwing thinktanks "cynical ploy" is to disguise the fact that the underlying rules, methods and limits that states across the world use to regulate business, favour the interests of business. 

Business as usual! At all costs!

When markets collapse, through weakened regulatory oversight, as in the banking crisis, and as in most crises within a capitalist system, after the profits have been secured from dodgy dealing, and usually passed into private hands, society at large carries the loss. This is what is known as:

Privatizing Profits And Socializing Losses

Privatizing profits and socializing losses refers to the practice of treating company earnings as the rightful property of shareholders, while losses are treated as a responsibility that society must shoulder. In other words, the profitability of corporations are strictly for the benefit of their shareholders. But when the companies fail, the fallout—the losses and recovery—are the responsibility of the general public. Popular examples of this include taxpayer-funded subsidies or bailouts.

For so-called free-marketeers this is what the "State" is for, the instrument for enabling large corporations, their executives, and their shareholders to benefit from government subsidies and rescues in large part because of their ability to cultivate or buy influence through lobbyists. 

At the same time, defenders of controversial subsidies and bailouts contend that some firms are "too big to fail". This rationale is based in the assumption that allowing them to collapse would cause economic downturns and have much more dire effects on the working and middle class population than rescues do. This was the basis for the bailouts given to the big banks following the financial crisis of 2008-9.

They got away with ten years of pointless austerity, but now, in this crisis, the need is for a different narrative.

Philip Inman reports for the Observer (Sat 16 May 2020) under the headline:

Rightwing thinktanks call time on age of austerity

Britain’s leading free-market thinktanks, which backed Margaret Thatcher’s tax-cutting and privatisation agenda and sanctioned the last 10 years of austerity, have lent their support to the government’s plans for unprecedented and sustained increases in public spending.

In a shift of stance that will give Rishi Sunak political clearance to ramp up UK debts to levels not seen in peacetime, the Adam Smith Institute, the Centre for Policy Studies, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange said they endorsed public spending increases to confront the coronavirus outbreak and state-funded investment to boost the recovery.

The support for widespread state intervention to rescue the economy came as Boris Johnson told backbench Tory MPs there were no plans to impose a public sector wage freeze or other austerity measures to bring down public spending in the crisis.

In a call to around 125 members of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, the Daily Telegraph reported that the prime minister said there was “no question” of a return to austerity, and assured them he would “double down” on funding transport projects in the north of England.

Johnson addressed MPs after a leaked Treasury memo revealed that some officials were putting in place detailed plans for spending cuts to arrest a public sector deficit expected to climb by at least £300bn this year.

Britain is expected to enter a deep recession following the lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent body responsible for forecasting the public finances, showed the economy suffering a 35% decline in output between April and the end of June and a rise in unemployment to at least 10%.

The cost of measures such as the Treasury’s furlough scheme, which has paid employers to send home over 7 million workers, will send the public spending deficit above 15% this year, 50% higher than the worst period following the 2008 crash.

Left-leaning thinktanks and academics have lined up to condemn plans for a return to austerity, saying it would harm the recovery, and adding that further government borrowing would be needed to secure a return to growth after the virus-induced mothballing of the economy.

During the last recession, most free market thinktanks buttressed austerity measures imposed by the then chancellor George Osborne, arguing that the public sector deficit should be quickly reduced.

Warwick Lightfoot, chief economist at Policy Exchange, said: “I don’t think anyone is arguing for a relaunch of austerity”. Even an austerity hawk believes it is different this time. “The last thing you want to do is amplify the prospects of a full-blown depression,” he added.

Policy Exchange, founded in 2002 by Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office chief, Tory peer Francis Maude, former MP Nick Boles and businessman Archie Norman, has a loyal following in the cabinet and has claimed to be behind several recent Tory policies.

Lightfoot said low interest rates meant the government could borrow cheaply to invest in infrastructure to get the economy back on its feet.

Matthew Lesh, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, founded in the 1970s to promote free-market policies, said: “Even fiscally hawkish people have less of a problem with the current increase in debt levels.”

Tom Clougherty, head of tax at the Centre for Policy Studies, said: “I’d usually be wary of big public investment schemes In the current circumstances, though, with borrowing costs very low and little prospect of crowding out private investment, I think the pros outweigh the cons.”

The CPS was founded in the 1970s to combat socialism by former MP Keith Joseph, a close friend and supporter of Margaret Thatcher.

Echoing left-leaning economists, Lesh said the Bank of England should support the government with loose monetary policy, allowing it to borrow at low interest rates.

Julian Jessop, an economics fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs – a thinktank founded in the 1950s with the support of free-market economist Friedrich Hayek – said that he was relaxed about the debts built up during the worst of the lockdown. “There are obvious risks that austerity will restrict growth,” he said.

But he was concerned that the government would harm the economy by keeping restrictions on business activity for much of the year, which would delay a bounce-back in economic growth.

“The longer the economy is kept shuttered, the greater the risk that more of the damage will be permanent, making it that much harder to pay for better public services and infrastructure in the future,” he said.

The four thinktanks continue to believe the Treasury should examine tax-cutting measures to promote innovation and entrepreneurial activity, saying that over the longer term, Whitehall was poor at allocating funds to the economy in the most effective way.

"The political moment is now"

This is the quote that begins Jonathan Watts story for the Guardian (Sun 17 May 2020) that in the print edition ran under the headline:

Airline bailouts need green strings attached, say climate activists

“The political moment is now” to address the climate risks posed by the aviation industry, analysts, insiders and campaigners say, as governments across the world weigh up bailouts for airlines grounded by the coronavirus pandemic.

Rescue packages need to come with green strings, such as reduced carbon footprints and frequent flyer levies, they warn, or the sector will return to the path that has made it the fastest rising source of climate-wrecking carbon emissions over the past decade.

Old passenger jets also need to be rapidly retired or cheap oil prices will encourage budget airlines to run services almost empty, which could push up emissions even if passenger numbers stay low, they say.

As did banks after the 2008-9 financial crisis, many aviation companies are appealing for government support to escape from a problem they partly caused. The expansion of flight networks, packed seating and a reluctance to accept quarantine measures have contributed to the rapid transmission of the Covid-19 virus across the globe.

Until the pandemic, governments were so focused on keeping airlines globally competitive that they largely gave the sector a free ride in terms of emissions cuts and contributions to public revenues. Aviation fuel is completely untaxed in most countries.

But the crisis has weakened airline claims that they should be treated as profit-seeking independent companies rather than public entities with social responsibilities.

Thousands of planes have been grounded for two months. Even if the lockdown is lifted soon, the industry expects revenues to halve this year. Many airlines are now begging for taxpayer support.

European governments have agreed €12.7bn (£11.35bn) in bailouts, with another €17.1bn under discussion, according to a tracker compiled by Carbon Market Watch, Greenpeace and Transport & Environment. The US approved $25bn (£20.6bn) support for the industry in April.

If public funds are used to save companies, there is a growing argument that society should get something in return in terms of environmental improvements.

Hopes were raised when the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Air France would have to become “the greenest airline in the world” in return for a €7bn bailout. This meant reducing the carbon intensity of their overall operations by 50% by 2030, cutting absolute emissions within France by half by 2030, using 2% renewable jet fuel by 2024 and drastically reducing the number of flights of less than 2hr 30mins duration that compete with rail services.

Although these conditions are currently non-binding, campaigners said they were hopeful they will be supported by new laws in the coming years.

Andrew Murphy, an aviation policy officer at the NGO Transport & Environment, said this could be a turning point after decades of inaction.

“Before the Covid crisis, aviation emissions were going in the wrong direction. This is a moment that has shaken up the industry and raised questions about subsidies, tax breaks, and frequent flying. It is an opportunity for governments to think how they support the airline industry.”

He said he was also encouraged the UK has not yet committed public funds to bail out airlines, which would gives them the incentive to put planes back in the sky too soon. A more important step, he said, would be for government to include aviation emissions in their climate targets. “It’s not sexy, but it’s very important,” he said. “Without this, nations’ climate calculations are based on dodgy accounting, as Greta [Thunberg] pointed out when she was in the UK last year.”

Some environmentalists such as George Monbiot argue airlines should not be rescued. This is echoed by Extinction Rebellion. “With 90% of UK planes grounded, and knowing we need to halt polluting industries, there can be no justification for the government to financially support restarting flights. Let’s embed this change rather than bail out this destructive industry and its tax-avoiding owners,” the group’s UK spokesperson, Sarah Lunnon, said.

Other climate campaign organisations, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, say bailouts are only acceptable if they come with green conditions. They say airline companies should pay a fair share of taxes and not rely on offsets to reduce emissions, as they are currently doing.

Among the measures they propose are fuel taxes on domestic flights (which are currently tax free) and the introduction of a frequent flier levy. In the UK, 15% of people take 70% of flights. Globally, only 3% of the world’s 7.6bn population flies frequently.

“If governments want to address the twin challenges of Covid and climate change, the political moment is now,” says Dan Rutherford, aviation director at the International Council on Clean Transportation. “Policies to curb frequent flying could benefit both public health and the global environment.”

He said passengers should also be given information about the carbon costs of their flights, which would allow them to support more efficient airlines. The difference between companies can be as much as 80% on the same city-to-city flight depending on the type of aircraft, load factors and routes.

Even before the pandemic, the airline industry was feeling public pressure from “the Greta effect”, direct action by Extinction Rebellion and the high court decision to block Heathrow expansion because it posed unacceptable climate risks.

The Heathrow chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said the UK should build back better after the Covid-19 crisis. “The government can accelerate the decarbonisation of aviation, by helping to scale up new energy sources, such as sustainable aviation fuels, just as they did successfully for solar and wind. Any company that is bailed out by the government should commit to net-zero emissions well before 2050.”

Passenger numbers at the UK’s largest airport fell by 97% in April, prompting hundreds of job losses and fears of many more to follow. British Airways and its parent company AIG did not respond to the Guardian’s request for a comment about their willingness to accept tighter controls on emissions.

The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said he will not treat the aviation industry as a special case, but might consider bailouts on a case-by-case basis.

Green party politicians say a clearer position is necessary to help workers in the sector to transition to other jobs.

“Whilst a reduction in flying will have a tremendously positive impact on the environment, we need to ensure jobs are created elsewhere for those currently working in the aviation industry,” the Brighton mayor, Alex Phillips, said. “This could mean, for example, that workers are either offered the opportunity to retire in dignity or to retrain in new sectors – whether they be in zero-emission transport or low carbon jobs that we are in need of both now and in the future.”

The issue is likely to linger long after the lockdown. The International Air Transport Association says demand for air travel will not recover until 2023 at the earliest.

Eight steps towards a cleaner aviation sector

• Reduce flights. Demand is unlikely to recover for at least three years so the simplest way to reduce aviation emissions is to have fewer planes in the air. 

• Tax aviation fuel. Initially just for domestic flights so they do not have an unfair advantage against low-emission rail services. Air France has been told it cannot have a bailout unless it phases out flights that compete with train journeys of 2hr 30mins or less. This should later be widened to international flights, which are responsible for 90% of airline emissions in Europe. 

• Introduce a frequent flyer levy. In the UK, 15% of people take 70% of flights. Globally, only 3% of the world’s 7.8bn population flies frequently. Increasing costs for them would make a bigger difference than asking people to end their annual overseas holiday.

• Provide transparent data on carbon emissions of flights so customers can avoid less efficient airlines. Few people are currently aware of the data, but the difference can be as much as 80% on the same city-to-city flight depending on the type of aircraft, load factors and routes. 

• Incorporate the aviation sector into national climate targets. Currently the UK’s Climate Change Act only mentions airlines rather than making them part of the country’s emissions calculations, which Thunberg described last year as “extremely creative accounting”.

• Reduce fleet sizes by scrapping old, gas-guzzling planes. This would also reduce the risk that low petrol prices will prompt budget airlines to rent cheap planes and run them almost empty, which would keep them in business but increase emissions per passenger. 

• Halt airport expansion. Campaigners won an important victory in February when the high court ruled against Heathrow expansion due to the climate risks. But many other airports plan to open new terminals and runways in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

• Invest in green fuel and tech. The French government has said Air France must use alternatives to fossil fuels for at least 2% of flights by 2024. Norway is pioneering electric planes and biofuel from waste products. Heathrow says the UK government should also promote cleaner fuel.

Every cloud has a silver lining . . .

. . . but this is only a temporary hiatus!

Fiona Harvey covers this story as Environment correspondent for the Guardian (Tue 19 May 2020), and on the same page in the print edition, Wednesday 20 May 2020, offers an Analysis of the opportunities presented by the Covid-19 crisis to tackle the even greater challenge of the climate emergency. Fiona Harvey is clear in her analysis on how the fall in carbon emissions is relatively insignificant in the context of meeting the targets set in the Paris agreement. She writes:

Carbon dioxide emissions have fallen dramatically since lockdowns were imposed around the world due to the coronavirus crisis, research has shown.

Daily emissions of the greenhouse gas plunged 17% by early April compared with 2019 levels, according to the first definitive study of global carbon output this year.

The findings show the world has experienced the sharpest drop in carbon output since records began, with large sections of the global economy brought to a near standstill. When the lockdown was at its most stringent, in some countries emissions fell by just over a quarter (26%) on average. In the UK, the decline was about 31%, while in Australia emissions fell 28.3% for a period during April.

“This is a really big fall, but at the same time, 83% of global emissions are left, which shows how difficult it is to reduce emissions with changes in behaviour,” said Corinne Le Quéré, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. “And it is not desirable – this is not the way to tackle climate change.”

The unprecedented fall is likely to be only temporary. As countries slowly get back to normal activity, over the course of the year the annual decline is likely to be only about 7%, if some restrictions to halt the virus remain in place. However, if they are lifted in mid-June the fall for the year is likely to be only 4%.

That would still represent the biggest annual drop in emissions since the second world war, and a stark difference compared with recent trends, as emissions have been rising by about 1% annually. But it would make “a negligible impact on the Paris agreement” goals, Le Quéré said.

Emissions must fall to net zero by mid-century or soon after to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and keep global heating from reaching catastrophic levels, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The fall in carbon resulting from the Covid-19 crisis reveals how far the world still has to go, said Le Quéré.

The experience of the crisis so far has shown that changes in behaviour by individuals – such as not flying, working from home and driving less – can only go part of the way needed to cut emissions, as even the lockdown measures left the bulk of emission sources intact, she said, adding that bigger shifts are needed to the way people produce and use energy.

“Just behavioural change is not enough,” she said. “We need structural changes [to the economy and industry]. But if we take this opportunity to put structural changes in place, we have now seen what it is possible to achieve.”

Emissions from aviation showed a dramatic decline, of about 60%, as international flights between many countries were grounded. Emissions from surface transport fell less sharply, by about 36%. Power generation and industry accounted for about 86% of the total decline in emissions.

Despite such an unprecedented fall, the impacts on the climate are likely to be small. Stocks of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which reached 414.8 parts per million last year, will rise further towards the danger threshold of 450ppm this year, though perhaps at a slightly slower pace.

“Carbon dioxide stays in the air a long time, so although emissions are smaller, they are still happening and so carbon dioxide is still building up, just a little more slowly,” said Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts research at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who was not involved in the paper. “If we want to halt the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we need to stop putting it there altogether. It’s like we’re filling a bath and have turned down the tap slightly, but not turned it off.”

The lockdowns have caused steep falls in energy demand, but energy production has hardly been changed by the crisis, noted Mark Maslin, a professor of climatology at University College London, who was also not involved in the paper.

“The real lesson of this pandemic is that we must globally shift our energy production away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible if we are to ensure sustained year-on-year cuts to our global emissions,” he said. “The good news is that both of these will help to maintain the clean air and clear skies we have all rediscovered during lockdown, saving many lives.”

The comprehensive analysis was conducted by scientists from the University of East Anglia, Stanford University in the US, the Cicero Centre in Norway, as well as scientists in the Netherlands, Australia, France and Germany.

The researchers used measurements of economic activity, energy generation, industrial production, transport and other proxies to estimate carbon dioxide output. They concentrated their analysis on six areas: power generation, surface transport, industry, public buildings and commerce, residential sources, and aviation. Estimates were taken from 69 countries, 50 US states and 30 Chinese provinces, representing 97% of global carbon emissions.

Although the rising concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere are regularly measured, they are subject to large natural fluctuations so are unsuitable to the kind of snapshot analysis required to observe what is happening to global carbon output over a relatively short period.

China relaxes restrictions on coal power expansion for third year running

New coal projects are getting underway despite financial losses and low utilisation of existing plants, writes Gao Baiyu , just over a month ago for the chinadialogue (17.04.2020). 

China has lowered the risk ratings for coal-power overcapacity in many parts of the country for the third year in a row. The move opens the door for more regions to build coal power in 2021-23 and has been interpreted by experts as a signal that coal will be a key part of the 14th Five Year Plan, which will start next year.

Every year the National Energy Administration (NEA) releases a “risk alert for coal power capacity planning and construction”, which looks ahead three years.

The 2023 Risk Alert, published on 26 February, gave a red rating for capacity adequacy – meaning there’s a high risk of coal power overcapacity – to just three regions. Orange ratings increased from two to three, and all other regions were rated green.

The alert’s resource constraint assessment, which tracks coal and water availability, remained unchanged from last year, with the same 12 regions rated as red. As for profitability, ten regions were rated red – meaning operations are likely to be unprofitable – and the number of orange regions dropped from two to one.

While profitability warnings are only advisory, a red or orange rating for capacity adequacy or resource constraints means binding restrictions: these regions cannot approve or start construction on new coal power projects intended to supply local demand; only a green rating gives permission.

Over the past three years, the risk alerts have seen the number of regions with red or orange warnings for capacity adequacy and resource constraint fall from 26 to 17 to 13 for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023.

A flawed analysis

The justification for the risk alerts dates back to 2014 when many coal power projects got underway after approval powers were devolved to the local level, explained Yuan Jiahai, a professor at the School of Economics and Management at North China Electric Power University, in his recent Caixin column. He wrote that the 13th Five Year Plan (FYP) target of increasing China’s coal capacity by 200 gigawatts (to a total of 1,100 gigawatts) was a retrospective acknowledgement by government that these projects were already being built. Aware of the overcapacity risk, the state adopted a traffic-light early warning system in case it needed to cap coal power capacity at the local level – with the aim of slowing new plant construction.

"Publishing a risk alert dotted with green lights at such a sensitive time is sending a very clear signal."

This system is flawed, in Yuan’s view, because the process for calculating capacity adequacy is opaque, and doesn’t consider other factors such as the role of transregional grids to share power, and demand response, which can reduce or shift demand during peak periods. Similarly, the indices for resource restrictions and profitability are not an accurate reflection of local environmental limitations or operational challenges of the coal power sector.

Yuan argues that the risk alert was intended to be a braking mechanism on the coal sector but is instead heralding a repeat of the massive coal investment witnessed in 2014. The national energy authority is currently drafting the 14th Five Year Plan for energy and Yuan points out that “publishing a risk alert dotted with green lights at such a sensitive time is sending a very clear signal”. The change may be a response to a highly controversial report from the China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute that predicted nationwide power shortages after 2023. This led to more calls for coal power expansion in the 14th FYP to ensure supply. Yuan told China Dialogue that the easing of restrictions may reflect the NEA’s concern with ensuring energy security after 2023.

However, as Yuan points out in the column, coal power utilisation rates were already low from the beginning of the 13th FYP period. They fell even further in 2019, according to a March report from Global Energy Monitor, the Centre for Research on Clean Energy and Air (CREA), Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

The report also found that annual coal power capacity additions are worsening the capacity surplus and that shelved projects are restarting as restrictions are relaxed. Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst with CREA, told media that “there are still voices within China supporting thermal power and hoping to see hundreds of new coal power plants built by 2030. This is clearly contrary to China’s international commitments on climate change.”

In mid-March, independent financial thinktank Carbon Tracker published a report on coal power competitiveness around the globe, saying that China still has 99.7 gigawatts of coal power capacity under construction, and 106.2 gigawatts more in the planning pipeline – accounting for 40% of global capacity under construction or in planning.

The risks of coal power inertia

The worsening over-supply of coal power is a risk to the industry itself.

Companies are already losing money. For years, utilisation rates have been low, coal expensive and electricity prices falling, leaving China’s coal power generators to soak up significant losses. A 2018-2019 report from the China Electricity Council found almost 50% of Chinese thermal power generators lost money over the year. 

Aside from revenue losses, coal plants also risk becoming stranded assets if carbon emissions are limited to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Research led by the University of Maryland based on 2017 levels of installed coal power capacity, found that there is no way to ensure an orderly coal power phaseout without halting the building of new plants. Under the 1.5C average warming target of the Paris Agreement, 241 billion yuan (US$34 billion) of assets will be stranded; and 65 billion yuan (US$9 billion) of assets will be stranded under the 2C pathway.

"There’s no consensus yet on the strategic direction for China’s power industry."

But even without international treaties, market factors will leave assets stranded, and possibly to an even greater extent. Carbon Tracker’s report assesses the risk of Chinese coal power assets stranding as “extreme”. It found that 70% of the country’s operating coal plants cost more to run than the cost of building new onshore wind or utility-scale solar PV. If China continues operating these coal plants then it risks stranding investments worth US$160 billion. The report recommends that China “cancel all under-construction and planned capacity immediately [and] increase utilisation rate of existing fleet through selective retirements in oversupplied or uncompetitive provinces”.

In a recent article, one of the authors of the report, Matt Gray, calls for China to avoid funding coal power investments in any post-epidemic stimulus package.

The changing role of coal power

Yet restrictions are being relaxed and new projects are getting underway. Figures from Global Energy Monitor show that in just the first 18 days of March, China approved the construction of 7.96 gigawatts of coal power – more than the 6.31 gigawatts approved during all 2019.

There is nothing similar for wind or solar power, which are still waiting for the energy authorities to extend grid connection deadlines for already approved projects so that subsidies can be disbursed.

So why, with the cost of renewables falling and a global energy transition underway, is China pouring money into an unprofitable sector at risk of asset stranding?

Yuan Jiahai told China Dialogue the answer is to do with stability and size. Coal is a controllable and reliable source of power that makes stabilising the power grid easier. Also, large coal power construction projects are better suited for a quick economic boost than much smaller renewables projects. Yuan thinks the sudden spurt of power plant approvals in March shows that local governments were keen to soften the economic impact of the epidemic by stabilising investment and spurring the economy.

Qin Haiyan, secretary of the China Renewable Energy Society’s wind power committee, points to the role of coal power lobbying and conservative attitudes toward renewables. “Some people continue to think wind and solar can’t replace coal. That we have to rely on coal to ensure our power supply,” he told China Dialogue. “There’s no consensus yet on the strategic direction for China’s power industry.”

Based on his team’s research, Yuan wrote in his Caixin article that low-carbon sources could meet new electricity demand in China during the 14th FYP. In a power system that relies much more on renewables, coal power could act as a “regulator” to provide safe and responsive backup.

“The decisions we make now will affect the power sector for 20 or 30 years to come,” Yuan told China Dialogue. “Investing in infrastructure now will maintain growth, but then how do we tackle optimising the power structure in a decade’s time? How do we achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement? What do we do with our coal power plants then?”

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Meanwhile, a report for the Guardian (Sun 17 May 2020) by Jonathan Watts and Jillian Ambrose, looks at how the coronavirus crisis has proved renewable energy is now a safer investment than coal.

Jonathan Watts and Jillian Ambrose, write:

The global coal industry will “never recover” from the Covid-19 pandemic, industry observers predict, because the crisis has proved renewable energy is cheaper for consumers and a safer bet for investors.

A long-term shift away from dirty fossil fuels has accelerated during the lockdown, bringing forward power plant closures in several countries and providing new evidence that humanity’s coal use may finally have peaked after more than 200 years.

That makes the worst-case climate scenarios less likely, because they are based on a continued expansion of coal for the rest of the century.

Even before the pandemic, the industry was under pressure due to heightened climate activism, divestment campaigns and cheap alternatives. The lockdown has exposed its frailties even further, wiping billions from the market valuations of the world’s biggest coal miners.

As demand for electricity has fallen, many utilities have cut back on coal first, because it is more expensive than gas, wind and solar. In the EU imports of coal for thermal power plants plunged by almost two-thirds in recent months to reach lows not seen in 30 years. The consequences have been felt around the world as well.

This week, a new report by the US Energy Information Administration projected the US would produce more electricity this year from renewables than from coal for the first time. Industry analysts predict coal’s share of US electricity generation could fall to just 10% in five years, down from 50% a decade ago. Despite Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to “dig coal”, there are now more job losses and closures in the industry than at any time since Eisenhower’s presidency 60 years ago. Among the latest has been Great River Energy’s plan to shut down a 1.1-gigawatt thermal plant in North Dakota and replace it with wind and gas.

Rob Jackson, the chair of Global Carbon Project, said the pandemic was likely to confirm that coal will never again reach the global peak seen in 2013: “Covid-19 will slash coal emissions so much this year that the industry will never recover, even with a continued build-out in India and elsewhere. The crash in natural gas prices, record-cheap solar and wind power, and climate and health concerns have undercut the industry permanently.”

Records are falling thick and fast. By Friday, the UK national grid had not burned a single lump of coal for 35 days, the longest uninterrupted period since the start of the industrial revolution more than 230 years ago. In Portugal, the record coal-free run has extended almost two months, the campaign group Europe Beyond Coal recently reported.

Last month Sweden closed its last coal-fired power plant, KVV6 in Hjorthagen, eastern Stockholm, two years early because the mild winter meant it was not used even before the pandemic. Austria followed suit with the shutdown of its only remaining coal plant at Mellach. The Netherlands said it would reduce the capacity of its thermal plants by 75% to comply with a court order to reduce climate risks.
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More importantly, in India – the world’s second-biggest coal consumer – the government has prioritised cheap solar energy rather than coal in response to a slump in electricity demand caused by Covid-19 and a weak economy. This has led to the first year-on-year fall in carbon emissions in four decades, exceptional air quality, and a growing public clamour for more renewables.

Elsewhere in Asia, the picture is mixed. A few years ago, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines were expected to be the industry’s biggest growth areas, but the pandemic, falling renewable prices and a growing divestment campaign have put several major coal projects on hold. The party of South Korean president Moon Jae-in has been re-elected on a pledge to phase out domestic coal use, and many in his ruling coalition are pushing to end financing of overseas projects. In Japan, the big three commercial lenders and the governor of the Japan Bank of International Cooperation have recently said they will no longer accept proposals for coal generation.

Other money taps are also being turned off, as investors and finance houses respond to scientific advice and campaigns by divestment activists and school strikers such as Greta Thunberg.

“The economics of coal were already under structural pressure before the pandemic,” said Mark Lewis, the head of sustainability research at the investment management arm of French bank BNP Paribas. “And coming out of it these pressures will still be there – but now compounded by the impact of the pandemic.”

BNP Paribas is one of a growing list of financial institutions which have chosen to sever ties with coal. The bank said last week that it would accelerate its planned exit from coal financing to 2030 to bring its portfolio in line with the Paris climate goals sooner.

In the same week, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund – the world’s biggest – ditched a host of coal mining and energy companies, including Glencore, Anglo-American, Vale and AGL over climate concerns. This follows coal blacklisting announcements by BlackRock, Standard Chartered and JPMorgan Chase.

The fossil fuel has fallen from favour in the eyes of many investors due to rising climate concerns, cheaper renewable energy alternatives and a public backlash against air pollution.

“The public health benefits of cleaner air will be front and centre after weeks of lockdown that have prompted blue skies and clean air in Asia’s megalopolises,” Lewis said. “This pressure from the finance sector will only accelerate going forward, pushing the cost of capital for coal projects even higher.”

Even before the pandemic, Australian coal companies said they were finding it hard to find financing for mines and port facilities due to the international divestment campaign. This is not the only economic squeeze. A near-30% fall in the price of thermal coal has made more than half of production unprofitable, prompting several firms to warn of pit closures and layoffs.

The elephant in the room is China, which burns half of the world’s coal and is the biggest financier of mines and power plants in Asia and Africa – largely to provide an export market for its domestic manufacturing and engineering firms. A few years ago, domestic coal consumption fell, prompting hopes that president Xi Jinping was committed to a shift away from dirty, high-emitting power production. But after the lockdown, the political priority is to jumpstart the economy. Provincial governments are now working on a slew of new thermal plants. But they are running at less than half of capacity because demand for coal has not returned to its previous level.

“Covid-19 has made clear that China and India have built more than they need. Even before the crisis, they had overcapacity. Now with lower demand, you can see everything is a mess,” said Carlos Fernández Alvarez, lead coal analyst at the International Energy Agency.

Alvarez said coal had been hit hardest by the pandemic, but he cautioned the decline could be temporary unless governments invest in renewables to pull economies out of the lockdown. “We have to look at this structurally. If there is high energy demand again in the future, it will probably be coal that picks up the slack because it is the marginal supplier,” he said.

While nobody is expecting coal to disappear any time soon, Ted Nace, director of Global Energy Monitor, believes the balance has shifted for good. “Coal is definitely on the downturn and this pandemic is going to accelerate that. Demand should come back to some degree next year. But there is a very strong argument that it is not going to just bounce back.”

Jillian Ambrose followed up this story in the print edition of the Guardian Wednesday 20 May 2020, with a contribution to the Guardian's continuing series Energy, that looks at how best to recover from the pandemic sustainably, sector by sector.

Jillian Ambrose writes under the following headline and subheading:

How renewable energy could power Britain's economic recovery

Harnessing power from sun, wind and sea could spur UK’s post-pandemic economy while tackling climate crisis, say experts

In the first months of 2020 Britain relied on renewable energy like never before. The power generated by clean energy projects eclipsed fossil fuels for the first time ever, making up almost half the electricity used to keep the lights on.

As the UK emerges from the financial maelstrom of the coronavirus pandemic, analysts, economists and environmentalists argue that the renewable energy industry could – and should – play a greater role, powering a green economic recovery too.

The companies harnessing energy from the sun, wind and sea hold the potential to spur the UK’s economy by attracting billions in investment and creating thousands of green jobs across the UK’s regions while accelerating Britain’s climate ambitions.

Britain’s clean energy sector proved this point in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis and the Confederation of British Industry calculated that the green economy contributed a third of the UK’s economic growth in 2010-11.

Britain’s traditional economic engines – the banks and financial services firms – had continued to flounder, leaving GDP growth struggling below 1% while the economic value of offshore wind climbed by almost 17% and the solar industry’s growth was almost 7%.

The CBI report concluded that the so-called “choice” between going green or going for growth was a false one because green business was already on track to become a major pillar of Britain’s future growth.

“After the last financial crisis, the UK’s green economy contributed substantially to new fiscal growth, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and finding new export markets around the world,” says Nathan Bennett of RenewableUK.

“Once again, our industry will play a proactive role in getting the economy back on track, as we move out of lockdown. Renewables are a UK-wide opportunity to have a sustainable, forward-looking recovery and to boost productivity across the economy.”

Today, much of the risk shouldered by renewable energy investors a decade ago has fallen away alongside plummeting technology costs. The UK’s commitment to pursuing a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 alongside its established financial support frameworks offer far more certainty to willing investors than in the past.

The investment case for renewables is flattered further by the relative gloom shrouding investment opportunities elsewhere: fossil fuels have fallen from favour among a growing number of investors due to climate concerns and the collapse of global market prices for oil, gas and coal in recent weeks.

Oil investors may have been able to count on returns on equity of about 25% when prices hovered at $100 a barrel, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, but today that figure is below 10% and falling. The returns on equity invested in offshore wind is 11%, and for solar it is 8% despite falling electricity bills.

Economists believe the renewable energy industry’s hard-fought financial clout combined with public policy support could create an economic and employment juggernaut capable of spurring the UK’s post-pandemic recovery while tackling the climate crisis too.

“The climate emergency has not gone away,” says Bennett. “If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the need to make sure our economy is sustainable and resilient in the long term.”

Globally renewable energy could power an economic recovery from Covid-19 by spurring global GDP gains of almost $100tn (£80tn) between now and 2050, compared with a business-as-usual scenario, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).

Irena said the coronavirus outbreak had exposed “the deep vulnerabilities of the current system” and urged governments to invest in renewable energy to kickstart economic growth and help meet climate targets.

Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power, one of the UK’s biggest renewable energy investors, says it is no overstatement to say that “the economic and environmental advantages of investment in a green recovery are aligned as never before”.

Scottish Power is poised to invest billions in the UK’s renewable energy industry in the coming years, including an onshore wind renaissance after the government’s U-turn on blocking financial support for onshore turbines.

The investment plans mapped out by Scottish Power and other renewable energy giants have remained intact through the pandemic while oil majors have slashed billions from their spending plans and warned that job losses are likely later in the year.

“The best thing about it is that you’re investing for the next 40 years in clean energy,” says Anderson. “There’s a whole load of other infrastructure work you could do in the UK, but the thing about investing in renewables is that it is just as good at creating jobs and kickstarting the economy – but the added benefit is that you’d be tackling climate change at the same time.”

The Social Market Foundation believes there could be long-term benefits for workers too. The thinktank called last week for the government to help train those left jobless by the looming financial recession to work in the low-carbon economy. The government could spur the economy, accelerate its climate ambitions and help kickstart social mobility, it said.

The “net zero” industries, which include clean energy, electricity networks, car-charging infrastructure and energy efficiency, could help provide new jobs for many of the 1.4 million people expected to be left unemployed following the pandemic.

The SMF has estimated that in some parts of the country, the number of green jobs that need to be filled to meet the climate goal is equal to half the number of people who were unemployed before the coronavirus crisis.

“There is a pressing need to provide better support for those who lose work in this crisis,” says Kathryn Petrie, the SMF’s chief economist. “But also an opportunity. A well-designed guarantee of work and training could protect people from lasting damage, support UK skills and support the greening of the economy.”

But the potential upsides could still slip away without decisive action to grasp the opportunity to reset the UK economy on a sustainable green foundation.

The International Energy Agency’s executive director, Fatih Birol, has called on governments to devise stimulus plans that put the green energy agenda at the heart of the economic recovery. Anderson says there is not a moment to lose.

“This is our message to the government: now is the time to do it. Investors are very keen to push money this way, and into these projects. The UK has a fantastic opportunity to grab a huge slice of the world’s renewable energy investment today. Now is the time.”

Against the background to the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the UK, the UK Labour party unveiled its vision for the country's future direction post-pandemic on Monday. The Labour party, as the official opposition has to contend with a hostile media environment. It is difficult having to compete for attention in an era where rightwing governments use the state's machinery to promote alternative facts, peppered with highly functional bouts of political amnesia, along with well paid rightwing pundits peddling post-truth narratives, and now running (and ruining), the country. The left needs to get organised, in order to combat the rightwing media machines, and to cooperate to a purpose, right across the differing fractions (or factions). This is a similar problem for the movements of the left, across the planet. If a unifying purpose is necessary now, the double crisis presents the left with an opportunity to change the terms of media discourses.

Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor report for the Guardian (Sun 17 May 2020) on the Labour party's Green New Deal in a post-coronavirus crisis future, under the headline and subheading:

Labour to plan green economic rescue from coronavirus crisis

Exclusive: Ed Miliband calls for creation of ‘zero-carbon army’ for eco-friendly industries 

Labour is drawing up ambitious proposals to rescue the post-coronavirus economy with a radical green recovery plan focused on helping young people who lose their jobs by retraining them in green industries.

Seeking to seize the initiative on the country’s future direction once the pandemic abates, Ed Miliband, the shadow business secretary, has called for the plans to include creating a “zero-carbon army of young people” doing work such as planting trees, insulating buildings and working on green technologies.

Miliband told the Guardian that the combination of the economic damage caused by the virus and the imperative to tackle issues such as the climate emergency and pollution required ambition on the scale of Clement Attlee’s postwar Labour government.

“It’s a contemporary equivalent of what happened after 1945,” Miliband said. “It’s never too early to start thinking about the future, to think about what kind of world we want to build as we emerge from this crisis. I think we owe it to have a sort of reassessment of what really matters in our society, and how we build something better for the future.”

Under a timetable coordinated by Miliband and the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, Labour will this week start a rapid consultation with businesses, workers, unions and others on how a green recovery could happen. Proposals will then be put to the government.

“I think we should be aiming for the most ambitious climate recovery plan in the world,” Miliband said. “That should be nothing less than the government’s ambition. The old argument that you can have economic success or environmental care is just completely wrong.”

Miliband predicted that such an approach would be welcomed by a population already living through a period of significant change, and where many people had welcomed side-effects of the lockdown such as better air quality.

The fact that people had grown used to seeing ministers defer to scientists on coronavirus meant they might now expect the same approach on the climate emergency, Miliband argued.

“I do think that there’s a public mood about this,” he said. “Yes, people want to get out of lockdown as soon as it is safe to do so, but also, having been through what they’ve been through, they want something better.

“We need a new deal for our healthcare workers and essential workers, obviously. But we also need a new deal around the quality of people’s lives. That’s what this is about.”

The plans would build on elements of Labour’s “green industrial revolution” plan, put together under Jeremy Corbyn, which calls for a zero-carbon economy by 2030, but with an urgency and focus reflecting the post-Covid-19 economic situation.

Citing forecasts from the Resolution Foundation that more than 600,000 more young people could become unemployed this year because of coronavirus, Miliband said one policy should be a scheme in which the government would pay the wages of young workers in green industries for a period.

This could also involve retraining older people, Miliband said, saying that there should be an ambition to “leave no worker behind” in any transition towards a different economy.

He added: “But we know that the longer young people stay out of work, the more it blights their future prospects. We need a sort of zero-carbon army of young people doing the things that we know we need to do anyway.

“My first priority would be to say to young people, ‘We’re going to find you fulfilling, decently paid work which is going to make a contribution to this absolutely vital cause that we face.’ I think that’s step one in the emergency.”

A lot of the plans could be adapted by particular regions, for example if there were areas such as the south-west of England where significant numbers of people had lost jobs in tourism and hospitality and needed retraining.

There had been concern among some parts of the party that the shadow cabinet had failed to highlight the benefits of a radical green recovery – and its job-creating capacity – in the initial stages of the coronavirus crisis.

However, Miliband said the initial focus had been on “the rescue phase” of coronavirus on the economy, such as scrutinising the furlough scheme, with planning for a subsequent “recovery and renewal phrase” starting now.

The Labour for a Green New Deal group welcomed Miliband’s announcement, but said a just green transition must be at the heart of the party’s economic policies. It called on Labour to push for public ownership of failing carbon-intensive industries.

“With the oil and aviation industries in freefall, Labour should be pushing now for climate bailouts, using public ownership to wind down air routes and fossil fuel extraction,” said the group’s Lauren Townsend. “Keir Starmer pledged to ‘hardwire the Green New Deal into everything we do’ – that has to mean taking on the big polluters.”

Are global leaders capable of learning lessons?

Fiona Harvey reports on the a call from many "experts" for world leaders to learn the lessons of the 2008 crisis, which led, disastrously, it seems in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, to the UK government policies that slashed public sector capacity within society and outsourcing government functions to private enterprise to generate profits from running the welfare state. This was as an ideological adjunct to ten years of pointless austerity. In today's print edition of the Guardian this Analysis was on the same double page layout as the story in the fall of carbon dioxide emissions and renewable energy. Fiona Harvey writes:

Global leaders must heed the lessons of the financial crisis of 2008 when they look to repair the damage from the coronavirus pandemic, leading experts have warned, to avoid entrenching disastrous social, health and environmental inequalities and hastening climate breakdown.

The 2008 global financial crisis and recession marked the last time the world experienced a convulsion comparable in scale to the coronavirus crisis, though starkly different in its nature. Governments responded first with economic rescue and stimulus packages worth trillions in taxpayer cash, followed in many cases by austerity programmes to cut back public spending.

But the past decade has produced far greater levels of inequality than has been seen since before the second world war, producing starker contrasts between the extremely rich and the rest in health, job security, education and other measures, with poorer people suffering worst and the middle classes squeezed while the income of the top 1% soared.

Greenhouse gas emissions have also risen, despite warnings from scientists and the Paris agreement of 2015, threatening an even worse crisis if governments do not rapidly change tack. The rise came despite some efforts to “green” the post financial crisis recovery, with low-carbon and environmental measures accounting for about 16% of the stimulus.

To avoid a similar outcome this time, leaders must ensure their response to the Covid-19 crisis looks to the good of the whole of society, rather than just the economy, and addresses the climate emergency as well, said Sir Michael Marmot, who led the landmark UK review of public health that found life expectancy fell following austerity.

“The scale of what is happening in the economy now is hugely greater than in 2008,” he told the Guardian. “We need to bring the climate agenda and the health agenda together. If we are not careful, the steps we take now will increase inequalities further. Enough people are saying now that austerity is not an experiment we want to repeat.”

Marmot is one of the leading voices calling for a “green recovery” that would direct any economic stimulus towards measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as generating jobs and repairing the economy.

The economic stimulus in the years after 2008 did produce some environmental improvements such as investments in renewable energy, which have cut the cost of solar and wind power. But the push to cut emissions was stymied by factors such as the sharp fall in the carbon price under the EU’s emissions trading scheme, and China’s construction push.

This time can be different, argues Lord Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s leading climate economists and author of the landmark 2006 review of the costs of climate change. “Technology is completely different now. We have seen the costs of key technologies such as renewable energy come right down. We have altogether superior electric vehicle technology. And we know more about air pollution, and how many people it kills.”

Putting money into the fossil fuel economy would be a waste, he added. “That produces insecurity. If we do things that leave stranded assets [in fossil fuel businesses], we also have stranded jobs.”

Yet talking about environmental measures in the midst of an economic crisis may not be popular, and could be seized on by populist opponents of climate action. The gilets jaunes protests in France were sparked by a rise in fuel taxes that had a particular impact on poorer workers in rural areas. Those protests had roots far deeper than just the fuel tax, some extending back to the response to the 2008 financial crisis, but some experts fear they show how green measures can be presented as contrary to working people’s interests.

“The gilets jaunes show there is a lesson to learn,” says Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, and one of the most influential global voices on energy economics. “I am afraid there will be a divergence among policymakers – they will see [a choice between] either jobs or climate change. It’s very important that we put policies in place that help to create jobs and stimulate a clean energy transition.”

Leading economists are hopeful, however, that those mistakes can be avoided and that the world will turn to “build back better” instead of pouring resources into fossil fuels.

“Focus on what we already know works,” said Birol. That means clean energy, such as wind and solar power, and energy efficiency. “Then focus on technologies that are ready for the big time – hydrogen [energy] and batteries. Third, we need sustained political support.”

The green recovery now has a rigorous intellectual underpinning, in the form of a paper by Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, Stern and others, published earlier this month. The paper examined the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and found that putting public money into green projects produced greater returns in both the short and long term than pouring cash into conventional high-carbon projects.

That is crucial, according to Brian O’Callaghan, of the Smith School for Enterprise at Oxford University and co-author of the study, because governments want “shovel-ready” projects that produce a lot of jobs quickly, that do not need too high levels of existing skills or extensive training, and that provide infrastructure that benefit the economy.

Retrofitting buildings, working on cities to make them more friendly to cyclists and pedestrians, digging trenches for broadband connections, putting in networks for charging electric vehicles, and planting trees are all examples of “shovel-ready” projects that could create jobs in the short term and reduce emissions permanently, according to Stern. “These are things that can be done quickly, and they are labour intensive.”

“Policymakers have time to design policy that both accelerates our economic recovery and reduces inequality,” said O’Callaghan. “It is time to rethink economic stimulus. This spending should be about more than just increasing next year’s GDP. Once-in-a-generation government spending could be used to reduce inequality and set up new industries for the coming decade.”

Austerity to a purpose . . .

Ed Miliband was right to reference Clement Attlee’s postwar Labour government: 

“It’s a contemporary equivalent of what happened after 1945” 

So, the state is back! But (as stated at the top of this post), it never went away!

The politics is complicated, as are the economic arguments, but the way the UK met the challenge of resisting the hostilities of the Axis powers in World War II reveals how, in those days, there was a responsiveness and resilience that seems to be surely lacking now. The coalition national government of Conservative and Labour politicians, was, with the resilience and ingenuity of industrial know-how, able to mobilise the resources of the nation far more effectively and efficiently than the Nazis in Germany, or the Soviets in the U.S.S.R. This level of industrial and organisational skill present in government and industry seems a far cry from where we find ourselves today. The functioning wartime state delivered, in peacetime, an economy that contributed to the re-building of a shattered post-war Europe, thereby necessitating continued food rationing at home, and an export drive that produced goods for export rather than for domestic consumption. The British post-war state was also able to deliver on the promise of a National Health Service, against a background of a mountain of national debt and a period of austerity, but, crucially, this was an era of austerity to a purpose.

Austerity Britain . . .

. . . and a street in Newcastle.

This photo was used as part of the cover design to the publication in 2007 of David Kynaston's Austerity Britain, 1945–1951. This title consists of two books that together make the first volume in a projected series of six entitled Tales of a New Jerusalem.

The first of these two books was titled A World to Build and the second was titled Smoke in the Valley. In the chapter called Broad Vistas and All That, in A World to Build, he writes: "There would be no fly-pasts in its honour, but arguably 1940 was the British state's finest hour, as the nation - under the iron willed direction of Ernest Bevin as Minister of Labour in Churchill's coalition government - mobilised for total war more quickly and effectively than either Germany or Russia." David Kynaston then makes the point that: 

The state, in other words, proved that it could deliver . . .

. . . as it also did by introducing wide-scale rationing in a way generally seen as equitable. Simultaneously, the first half of the war saw the creation of a plethora of new ministries: not only Labour but Economic Warfare, Food, Home Security, Information, Shipping, Aircraft Production and Production. 

They built Spitfires right in the centre of Salisbury . . .

By 1943 there were, not surprisingly, well over a quarter of a million more civil servants than there had been before the war. It was soon clear, moreover, that all the work of these ministries, as well as of the traditional ones, was now predicated upon assumptions of coordinated central planning - an utterly different mindset from Whitehall's customary approach and propagated by some exceptionally talented temporary recruits there, often operating at a very high level. (page 22)

Q. So, what happened to the state?

A. The profitable sectors sold off to capital, and the losses? Well society pays for the losses! 

David Kynaston's Preface to his Austerity Britain, 1945-1951, provides one half of the context in his choice of the study and exposition of a particular historical period to be covered in his projected series of volumes about Britain between 1945 and 1979 he has called Tales of a New Jerusalem. He explains:

These dates are justly iconic. Within weeks of VE Day in May 1945, the general election produced a Labour landslide and then the implementation over the next three years of a broadly socialist egalitarian programme of reforms, epitomised by the creation of the National Health Service and extensive nationalisation. The building blocks of the new Britain were in place. But barely three decades later, in May 1979, Margaret Thatcher came to power with a fierce determination to apply the precepts of market-based individualism and dismantle much of the post-war settlement. In the early twenty-first century, it is clear that her arrival in Downing Street marks the defining line in the sand of contemporary British history, and that therefore the years 1945 to 1979 have become a period - a story - in their own right.

So, where did Margaret Thatcher's fierce determination to apply the precepts of market-based individualism originate? One possible answer to this question can be found returning to Kynaston's A World to Build. Following on from the previous quote from David Kynaston's chapter Broad Vistas and All That, he writes:

Relatively early in the war, the great economist John Maynard Keynes had more or less won the battle within the Treasury to persuade that deeply conservative institution to accept at least a substantial measure of demand management as the principal way of regulating the economy in order to keep the level of unemployment down. Thereafter, the real intellectual conflict among radically minded 'activators' was between Keynsians and those whose ideal was wartime-style (and Soviet style) direct physical planning. For the former, there was still a significant role - at least in theory - to be played by the price mechanism of the market: for the latter, that role was fairly surplus to requirements. Bt the end of the war, it seemed that the force was with the out-and-out planners, with their emphasis on investment planning.

Indeed, such was the temper of the times that even most Keynesians had, in a visceral sense, little real faith in, or any great intellectual curiosity about , the possible economic merits of the market or of supply-side reforms. Hence the largely stony academic-cum-intellectual reception accorded in 1944 to The Road to Serfdom (dedicated 'To the Socialists of All Parties') by the Austrian economist F. A. Hayek, who was based at the London School of Economics (LSE). 'His central argument was that a modern economy was a vast system of information flows which signal to everyone indispensable facts about scarcity and opportunity,' a latter day follower, Kenneth Minogue, has helpfully summarised. 'The vitality of modern Western economies, and the best use of scarce resources, rested upon the workers and the entrepreeurs having these signals available to them. No planning committee could possibly plug in to them. Central direction could lead only to poverty and oppression.' (Pages 22-23)

Why I am Not a Conservative 

This is the stuff of legend. In February 1975, Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the British Conservative Party. The Institute of Economic Affairs arranged a meeting between F. A. Hayek and Margaret Thatcher in London soon after. 

Then, on the occasion of Margaret Thatcher's only visit to the Conservative Research Department in the summer of 1975, a speaker had prepared a paper on why the "middle way" was the pragmatic path the Conservative Party should take, avoiding the extremes of left and right. Before he had finished, Thatcher "reached into her briefcase and took out a book. It was Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty. Interrupting our pragmatist, she held the book up for all of us to see. 'This', she said sternly, 'is what we believe', and banged Hayek down on the table". (John Ranelagh, Thatcher's People: An Insider's Account of the Politics, the Power, and the Personalities, Fontana, 1992, p. ix.)

This book, The Constitution of Liberty by the aforementioned Austrian economist and Nobel Prize recipient Friedrich A. Hayek, presents an interpretation of civilization as being made possible by the fundamental principles of liberty, which the author presents as prerequisites for wealth and growth, rather than the other way around. Interestingly though, a postscript is included in this publication, entitled "Why I Am Not A Conservative." 

Re:LODE Radio chooses to quote two paragraphs from his postscript:

Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule—not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people.

When I say that the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to build a peaceful society with a minimum of force. The acceptance of such principles means that we agree to tolerate much that we dislike.  

The state as milch cow . . . 

Outsourcing state functions to private business is what is happening in the UK during this crisis. It was the Thatcher revolution that created these conditions where the privatisation of state functions for the private sector to make profits from the administration of social policies becomes a norm. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in the last Labour government administrations were also blindsided by capital in their Private Finance Intitiative programme to rebuild the National Health Service. 

Despite being so critical of PFI while in opposition and promising reform, once in power George Osborne progressed 61 PFI schemes worth a total of £6.9bn in his first year as Chancellor. According to Mark Hellowell from the University of Edinburgh:

The truth is the coalition government have made a decision that they want to expand PFI at a time when the value for money credentials of the system have never been weaker. The government is very concerned to keep the headline rates of deficit and debt down, so it's looking to use an increasingly expensive form of borrowing through an intermediary knowing the investment costs won't immediately show up on their budgets.

The high cost of PFI deals is a major issue, with advocates for renegotiating PFI deals in the face of reduced public sector budgets, or even for refusing to pay PFI charges on the grounds that they are a form of odious debt. Critics such as Peter Dixon argue that PFI is fundamentally the wrong model for infrastructure investment, saying that public sector funding is the way forward.

With rightwing ideologues in charge since 2010 the process of farming out the "profitable" elements of social policy has been consistently and disastrously amplified. The so-called re-structuring of the National Health Service by Conservative Health Minister Andrew Lansley has resulted in a fragmented pseudo-marketised and monetised structure where private business can make profits from the easy parts and the state pays for the difficult bits.

A look inside the Royal Liverpool Hospital

Looks great on the outside . . .

. . . but on the inside it's a nightmare!

This photo from a story in the Liverpool Echo shows part of how level 4 of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital has had to be ripped out for safety reasons. This was due to the failure of the PFI and Carillion partnership to finish the project to contract specifications and on time, back in 2018.

This report lodged by Liam Thorp (17 JAN 2020) in the days before the Covid-19 pandemic explains how so called "reforms" in the funding of social and health infrastructure have failed abysmally, leaving communities without a health provision that was planned for completion in 2017. He writes:

The stalled new Royal Liverpool Hospital will be more than five years late in being completed - with soaring costs on the doomed project set to reach nearly £1.1billion.

A shocking new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the projected overall costs on the new Royal have risen hugely from the originally planned £746m (which included £293m for remedial work). The projected costs to build and run the hospital - which was supposed to open in 2017 but has been heavily delayed after the collapse of construction giant Carillion - are now expected to reach £1.063billion.

And worryingly, the report says there is a significant risk of further delays and added costs at the ill-fated hospital. While the report explains that most of the increased costs on the project have been met by Carillion and private PFI investors - The taxpayer is currently still expected to pay £739million of the overall figure. Today union bosses and city leaders said much of the blame for the situation lies at the government's door for failing to prioritise the needs to get the hospital built.

Following the spectacular collapse of Carillion in January 2018, work stalled on the hospital project.

But as the NAO report confirms, there were significant construction problems and delays before the company went into liquidation - with the company's demise naturally creating further serious delays.

The report, which also discusses the stalled Birmingham Midland hospital that too has been delayed by Carrillion's collapse, states: "Work on both sites stopped while the hospital Trusts, government and the private investors attempted to rescue the projects.

"By September 2018, these attempts had failed; government decided to terminate the PFI schemes and provide public financing to complete the hospitals. It has then taken time to put in place new contracts and restart the projects."

In its investigation, the NAO says that the government has ensured that most of the increased construction costs on the new Royal have so far been borne by the private PFI investors and Carillion, rather than the taxpayer. Shareholders, investors, insurers and Carillion have lost at least £603million on the construction of both the Liverpool and Birmingham projects.

The report states: "The government wanted to ensure the private sector honoured its contracts and rejected proposals that it should provide more public funding to ‘bail out’ the PFI schemes or reduce the risk that lenders were exposed to."

The full extent of construction problems at Royal Liverpool began to emerge after Carillion collapsed and over the course of 2018. The new construction contractor has had to strip out three floors of the building and start major work to reinforce the structure with steelwork and additional reinforced concrete. Part of the remedial work involves replacing thousands of square meters of wrongly installed and dangerous cladding fitted onto the hospital building by Carillion.

The NAO investigation reveals how the Department of Health paid £42million compensation to Royal Liverpool’s investors to terminate the PFI contract. The contract required the Trust to pay compensation to the PFI company’s lenders, based largely on the estimated cost to complete the hospital, before the actual cost to complete the hospital was known. The report states: "Had the Department and Trust better understood the cost to complete the hospital, they may not have paid anything to the lenders.

"The estimated cost of completing the hospital has risen from £117million in September 2018, when The Department of Health agreed the termination payment, to £293million now."

The new suppliers for both the Trusts were chosen without competition.

After the termination of the PFI contract, in order to restart the Liverpool project without further delay, the Liverpool Trust agreed contracts with several new suppliers without a public procurement process. The Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust ran a public procurement for the contract to complete Midland Metropolitan taking 15 months, which only attracted one viable bidder.

Worryingly, the NAO predicts that there are 'significant risks of further delays and added costs' at the hospitals, although their situations are different.

Both Trusts are now directly managing the contracts with new construction firms. At Midland Metropolitan, the Sandwell Trust has negotiated a ‘target price’ for work by its new contractor, Balfour Beatty, and prices should not rise unless the Trust changes the scope of the project or there are unforeseen problems with Carillion’s work.

At the Royal Liverpool, the new main contractor, Laing O’Rourke has no contractual incentives to control costs. NHS England and NHS Improvement has worked with the Liverpool Trust to develop additional oversight arrangements such as using an independent construction consultancy to advise on the appropriateness of costs.

Responding to the National Audit Office’s report, Steve Warburton, Chief Executive of Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: 

“We welcome the National Audit Office’s report and its findings which highlight in detail how Carillion’s collapse had far-reaching consequences for the new Royal project. The report illustrates the complexities and complications faced by our predecessor organisation, the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust, at the time of Carillion’s demise, and the efforts needed to get work on site restarted. We will continue to work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, HM Treasury, and NHS England and NHS Improvement on taking the action required for project completion at the best possible value for taxpayers. Progressing the construction and remedial works with a sense of urgency remains our absolute focus to enable us to deliver a hospital of the highest standards, with a working environment that supports our excellent staff in delivering exceptional care for our patients.”

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail also responded, stating: 

“The report makes for grim reading and endorses what hospital patients and NHS staff in Liverpool and the West Midlands already knew. Two desperately needed hospitals are going to be years late and in the meantime local communities are left with facilities that are no longer fit for purpose. The responsibility for these delays has to lie squarely at the door of the government, which consistently failed to prioritise the overriding need that these hospitals had to be built. While the report notes the financial cost of the projects the human cost of the delays of completing the hospitals has not been recognised.” 

Speaking at a city council meeting this week, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said the government should shoulder much of the blame for the debacle at The Royal. He said: "The blame lies squarely with the government - they allowed Carillion to get hold of our hospital."

Two years ago, in the wake of this scandal, Owen Jones shared his opinion, in the Guardian Journal section (Wed 16 May 2018), that:

Carillion is no one-off scandal. Neoliberalism will bring many more.

More recently, following the NAO report, this report in the Guardian appeared under the the headline:

Carillion collapse: two years on, 'government has learned nothing'

A section of Rupert Neate and Rob Davies' report (Wed 15 Jan 2020), quoted Labour MP Rachel Reeves:

Rachel Reeves, the Labour MP who hopes to be re-elected as chairwoman of the Commons business select committee, said it was unacceptable that two years on from Carillion’s implosion the public was “still waiting for the official investigations to report back into what went wrong”.

“The government needs to urgently reform the way business works by toughening up the controls on the governance and auditing process of these companies,” Reeves told the Guardian. “Ministers must learn the lessons from the disaster at Carillion so that business works in best interests of the wider economy – not just those in the boardroom.

“The government’s politically driven obsession with outsourcing often results in poorer services, lower wages and heavier costs to the taxpayer. Ministers need to end that myopic mindset and consider keeping or bringing back services in-house.”

Reeves, who hauled Carillion’s former bosses before parliament in 2018, has previously said: “The company’s delusional directors drove Carillion off a cliff and then tried to blame everyone but themselves. Their colossal failure as managers meant they effectively pressed the self-destruct button on the company.”

Naomi Klein warns readers in yesterday's THE LONG READ in the Guardian Journal on:

How big tech pans to profit from the pandemic

As the coronavirus continues to kill thousands each day, tech companies are seizing the opportunity to extend their reach and power

Nesrine Malik in yesterday's Opinion piece in the Guardian Journal says:

There is revolution in the air now, but history shows the old order will fight back

The caption to this photo reads: A pledge to review the NHS surcharge for foreign doctors has come to nothing.’ Street art in Hull.

Re:LODE Radio chooses to quote from four paragraphs of Nesrine Malik's opinion piece, that includes a timely warning to her Guardian readers:

There is a naivety in the hope that once ideas are discussed and made popular, they will permeate policymaking and bring about change. History shows us that, during a period of economic upheaval, this is unlikely. The 2008 financial crisis is the clearest cautionary tale.

In reality, the first thing that happens in a recession tends not to be radical reengineering of the economy. The first impulse is to make a quick calculation: who should be saved and who is dispensable. In the US after the 2008 crash, the banks were recapitalised and the economy stabilised, and 10 million Americans lost their homes. The only factor that mattered was how many people could be lost without disrupting the economy for everyone else.

That question is already being asked with regard to the current lockdown. How many deaths can we afford before the economy suffers? Who are we happy to sacrifice, so that the rest of us can thrive? In the UK, the answer to that second question has been those already disproportionately affected by the pandemic. The working classes, the cleaners, the construction workers – the manual levers of the economy – have become the canaries, sent back down the coal mine to test the first stage of lockdown easing. If infections surge, it will hit them first.

If the loss of life is at a level deemed acceptable by big business and government, the focus will shift to moving on while minimising the need for change. The old order – that some are already writing eulogies for – will surge back rather than retreating. We will be told that deep-rooted reform is not necessary because this is an unprecedented crisis, an unforeseen event, a once-in-a-lifetime shock. Any failings are merely opportunities to learn lessons, as the prime minister’s deputy, Dominic Raab, is fond of saying: lessons about how to respond to an exact similar threat rather than reflect on the reason it was allowed to take hold in the first place.

The Song of Los(s)

Re:LODE Radio is prompted to make a link between the notion that it has become a norm that profits are for the capitalists and that losses are for the rest of us, and an illuminating work by William Blake, one of his "prophetical" publications created in 1795 called The Song of Los.

Q. Is it crass for Re:LODE Radio to point to Blake's obvious wordplay when it comes to "prophets" and loss?

The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers. In the second section he presents the human condition in the context of colonial powers, be it at home or far away, say, in India, or Indonesia?

ASIA

The Kings of Asia heard
The howl rise up from Europe!
And each ran out from his Web;
From his ancient woven Den;
For the darkness of Asia was startled
At the thick-flaming, thought-creating fires of Orc.

And the Kings of Asia stood
And cried in bitterness of soul.

Shall not the King call for Famine from the heath?
Nor the Priest, for Pestilence from the fen?
To restrain! to dismay! to thin!
The inhabitants of mountain and plain;
In the day, of full-feeding prosperity;
And the night of delicious songs.

Shall not the Councellor throw his curb
Of Poverty on the laborious?
To fix the price of labour;
To invent allegoric riches:

And the privy admonishers of men
Call for fires in the City
For heaps of smoking ruins,
In the night of prosperity & wantonness

To turn man from his path,
To restrain the child from the womb,

To cut off the bread from the city,
That the remnant may learn to obey.
That the pride of the heart may fail;
That the lust of the eyes may be quench'd:
That the delicate ear in its infancy

May be dull'd; and the nostrils clos'd up;
To teach mortal worms the path
That leads from the gates of the Grave.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

"We labourers don't belong to any country"

'My angel'

Under the heading of Migration and development, a Guardian project Global development, and supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi writes (Tue 19 May 2020) under the headline:

‘My angel’: man who became face of India’s stranded helped home by stranger

Image captured the plight of the millions of migrant labourers left unable to return home in the pandemic

A photograph of a migrant labourer, his face contorted with anguish as he sits on the roadside in Delhi speaking to his wife about their sick baby boy, has come to symbolise the ordeal of India’s daily wage workers; penniless, and unable to get home to their families because of the lockdown.

Rampukar Pandit, a construction worker in the Indian capital, had heard that his 11-month-old son was seriously unwell. With no public transport to reach his home in Begusarai in Bihar, 1,200 km (745 miles) away, he started walking. He reached Nizamuddin Bridge where, exhausted and hungry, he could go no further.

Atul Yadav, a photographer with the Press Trust of India, was heading home from work on 11 May when he saw Pandit, 38, sobbing his heart out. Pandit refused his offer of biscuits and water, saying food would “choke” him because he couldn’t eat while his son was unwell. “He was so emotional I had to stop shooting. He had been sitting on the road for three days,” said Yadav.

‘We labourers don’t belong to any country,” Pandit told Yadav. “All I want is to go home and see my son.”

Later that evening, he reached a nearby police station. He was still waiting for the police to help when a group of well-wishers, having seen Yadav’s tweet about Pandit, arrived in the area and managed to find him at the station.

By now, he was full of grief. His wife, Bimal Devi, had just called to say their son had died. One of the well-wishers, a woman, paid for and arranged for his train ticket home. “He wept with gratitude at strangers helping him,” said Yadav.

Yadav’s photograph illustrates the anguish of millions of migrant labourers in India who are desperate to get home to their families. After waiting in vain for the government to provide them with transport (belatedly some trains are now being laid on for them) they have embarked on astonishing odysseys, from cities all over the country, journeys that have left Indians transfixed and distressed.

Whether by truck, bicycle, auto-rickshaw or on foot, they have been heading out under their own steam, some making journeys of nearly 1,000 km to reach home. Hunger, thirst, and the scorching heat of the Indian summer are slowing them down. Some have died of exhaustion and sunstroke. Last week a group of 16 who fell asleep on a railway line they had believed was not being used were killed by a goods train.

“If I am to die, I want to die with my parents,” said one young daily wage labourer leaving Indore, a city in Madhya Pradesh.

An auto-rickshaw driver fleeing Mumbai said: “Even if I starve in the village, I will never come back. My children needed medicines and food and I wasn’t able to do anything.”

Hannah Ellis-Peterson tells us how coronavirus and the lockdown is further dividing the country of India along class and religious lines.

Every day the exodus continues. The residents of Dharavi slum in Mumbai are fleeing in their thousands every day. With living conditions that make it almost impossible to escape the contagion and more than 1,100 confirmed cases of C0vid-19, many people feel they are sitting ducks.

Yadav, 44, has been documenting their plight for the past few weeks, ever since India’s lockdown began on 25 March. He has been taken aback at the response to his image of Pandit. It has been splashed all over Indian news outlets and social media.

He is getting calls from California and New York, both about his photograph and from people who want to help Pandit. “In my career so far, this is the photograph that has best shown one person’s pain,” he said.

Pandit reached Bihar last Wednesday and was put into a quarantine centre. There, he developed a temperature and headaches and was sent to hospital, where he has tested negative for Covid-19.

On the government’s inaction towards workers separated from their families, Pandit said he was not surprised. “I am a nobody, I’m like an ant, my life doesn’t matter. The government is only concerned with filling the stomachs of the rich,” he said.

Pandit cannot wait to reach his home and family. Once there, he plans never to return to Delhi or go to any other city for work, even though he has no land or any other means of support. “However I manage, I will manage. My family and my parents will be with me. That’s enough for me,” he said.

If he does ever return to Delhi, though, it will be to meet the woman who paid for his ticket and booked it for him. Before leaving, she gave him her address lest he needed further help to get home. “I would like to meet her again. She was my angel,” he said.

Meanwhile . . .

Where India’s government has failed in the pandemic, its people have stepped in

Civil society has outperformed the state in helping to feed India’s poorest. It should be seen as ally not enemy

Bharati Ramachandran writes for the Guardian Opinion (Tue 5 May 2020) as part of Global development theme, which is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The last few paragraphs of her opinion piece draw attention to the contemporary shortcomings of the Indian state:

“Everyone is talking about migrants – those who started walking back to their villages,” said Anshu Gupta, founder of Goonj, a Delhi-based charity. “There are also people who reached their villages, people who were stuck in the cities, and the millions already living in the villages. They are all in distress.”

The inadequacy of the state’s preparedness to tackle this crisis has led to local and central governments scrambling to build relations with civil society to deliver relief, a relationship that has been compromised over the past five years.

Between 2014 and 2020, the Indian government cancelled the licenses of over 20,000 NGOs to receive foreign funds under the Foreign Contributions Regulatory Act.

NGOs have been demonised, especially those working on human rights issues. Their bank accounts have been frozen, their staff have been harassed, and their intent has been questioned. Now, as the state grapples with a response to Covid-19, the government think-tank NITI Aayog has requested that more than 92,000 NGOs help the government fight the pandemic.

Gupta is unequivocal: “Civil society – NGOs and ordinary Indians – are fully taking care of the hunger problem.”

The sooner this government starts to see civil society as allies in fair and foul weather, the better – particularly for India’s poorest and most vulnerable people over the next few, very difficult months.

Bharati Ramachandran runs Barapani, a communications agency based in Bangalore, India that works with NGOs across South Asia and Africa.

. . . and the wealthy quaff wine in comfort.

People push loaded trolleys outside a supermarket in Bengaluru.

Meanwhile . . .

. . . the Indian government cracks down on any suggestion that India's super rich might increase their contribution to a wider national commonwealth

Shemin Joy reporting for the Deccan Herald from New Delhi (Apr 28 2020) just over a month ago, explains under the headline:

Coronavirus lockdown: CITU comes in support of IRS officers suspended over report suggesting higher taxes for super-rich

The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-backed Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) on Tuesday came in support of 50 Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers facing disciplinary action for recommending higher taxes for the super-rich to mobilise resources following the COVID-19 panic.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, CITU General Secretary Tapan Sen said the government action to charge sheet three IRS officers and institute enquiry against others was "thoroughly unjust and autocratic", that too in response to the collective opinion of a professional body like IRS Association on matters well within their professional competence and eligibility.

"Therefore, the suggestions highlighted by the 'FORCE' merits serious consideration by the government in the interests of people at large and also the national economy," he said. The IRS Association had recently publicised a report 'Fiscal Options and Response to COVID-19' (FORCE) prepared by the IRS Association suggesting tax-hike on the rich through income tax and wealth tax routes as the fiscal management strategy for tackling the issues and problems arising out of the pandemic.

An article by Wasantha Rupasinghe (4 May 2020) on the World Socialist Web Site, published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) has the real story under the headline:

Modi government punishes officials for urging increased taxation of rich to fight coronavirusThis excerpt from Wasantha Rupasinghe's article makes a salient point: 

The BJP regime’s claim that the FORCE report’s proposals for increased taxes on the incomes and wealth of the rich “amounts to criticism of the government’s policies” underscores that its principal focus is protecting the wealth of India’s tiny super-rich elite and convincing foreign investors they can make superprofits off the sweatshop exploitation of the working class.

As the Hindustan Times acknowledged in its report on the controversy, the BJP government reduced corporate tax rates drastically in September 2019, “sacrificing Rs. 1.45 lakh crore (more than $19 billion) in revenue.” The report continued, “Companies were given the choice of opting for a lower corporate tax rate of 22 percent (15 percent for newly incorporated companies) provided they don’t seek exemptions.”

The Modi government is granting such massive tax concessions to the corporations and super-rich under conditions where close to 900 million people in India are forced to live on less than $2 a day. In a further concession to the wealthy elite, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, has written off about 686.07 billion rupees of outstanding loans from the top 50 wilful defaulters. These include Vijay Mallaya, the billionaire liquor baron who absconded to Britain in 2016.

The BJP government fears that exposure of its pro-capitalist agenda, which it seeks to conceal behind a veil of phony populist rhetoric and strident communalism, could trigger a social explosion. Mass working class opposition to the Modi government was already developing before the pandemic, and undoubtedly has been further fuelled by its ruinous class response to the COVID-19 crisis. The government knows that under these conditions a call for increased taxation of the rich and super-rich could find mass support and—notwithstanding the moderate intentions of the FORCE report’s authors—serve as a catalyst for social struggle.

An Indian state actually managing the coronavirus crisis

When it comes to the Covid-19 health crisis we can see how in the Indian state of Kerala, where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has been prominent in Kerala’s governments since 1957, a state government can "deliver" through principled and practical governance. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) was part of the Communist Party of India until 1964, when it broke away.

CPI(M) is officially known as भारत की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी मार्क्सवादी(Bharat ki Kamyunist Party Marksvadi) in Hindi, but it is often known as मार्क्सवादी कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी (Marksvadi Kamyunist Party, abbreviated MaKaPa) in press and media circles. 

During its initial years after the split, the party was often referred by different names such as 'Left Communist Party' or 'Communist Party of India (Left)'. The party has used the name 'Left' because CPI people were dubbed as rightist in nature for their support to Congress-Nehru regime. During the Kerala Legislative Assembly elections of 1965 the party adopted the name 'Communist Party of India (Marxist)' to obtain its election symbol from the Election Commission of India.

The CPI(M) was born into a hostile political climate. At the time of the holding of its Calcutta Congress, large sections of its leaders and cadres were jailed without trial. Again on 29–30 December, over a thousand CPI(M) cadres were arrested and detained, and held in jail without trial. In 1965 new waves of arrests of CPI(M) cadres took place in West Bengal, as the party launched agitations against the rise in fares in the Calcutta Tramways and against the then prevailing food crisis. Statewide general strikes and hartals (The term comes from Gujarati (હડતાળ haḍtāḷ or હડતાલ haḍtāl), signifying the closing down of shops and warehouses with the goal of satisfying a demand. Mahatma Gandhi, who hailed from Gujarat, used the term to refer to his anti-British general strikes, effectively institutionalizing the term.) were observed on 5 August 1965, 10–11 March 1966 and 6 April 1966. The March 1966 general strike results in several deaths in confrontations with police forces. Also in Kerala, mass arrests of CPI(M) cadres were carried out during 1965.

The state delivers . . .

Laura Spinney's interview with Kerala's health minister KK Shailaja was posted on the Guardian Coronavirus outbreak pages (Thu 14 May 2020) under the headline:

The coronavirus slayer! How Kerala's rock star health minister helped save it from Covid-19

KK Shailaja has been hailed as the reason a state of 35 million people has only lost four to the virus. Here’s how the former teacher did it

On 20 January, KK Shailaja phoned one of her medically trained deputies. She had read online about a dangerous new virus spreading in China. “Will it come to us?” she asked. “Definitely, Madam,” he replied. And so the health minister of the Indian state of Kerala began her preparations.

Four months later, Kerala has reported only 524 cases of Covid-19, four deaths and – according to Shailaja – no community transmission. The state has a population of about 35 million and a GDP per capita of only £2,200. By contrast, the UK (double the population, GDP per capita of £33,100) has reported more than 40,000 deaths, while the US (10 times the population, GDP per capita of £51,000) has reported more than 82,000 deaths; both countries have rampant community transmission.

As such, Shailaja Teacher, as the 63-year-old minister is affectionately known, has attracted some new nicknames in recent weeks – Coronavirus Slayer and Rockstar Health Minister among them. The names sit oddly with the merry, bespectacled former secondary school science teacher, but they reflect the widespread admiration she has drawn for demonstrating that effective disease containment is possible not only in a democracy, but in a poor one.

How has this been achieved? Three days after reading about the new virus in China, and before Kerala had its first case of Covid-19, Shailaja held the first meeting of her rapid response team. The next day, 24 January, the team set up a control room and instructed the medical officers in Kerala’s 14 districts to do the same at their level. By the time the first case arrived, on 27 January, via a plane from Wuhan, the state had already adopted the World Health Organization’s protocol of test, trace, isolate and support.

As the passengers filed off the Chinese flight, they had their temperatures checked. Three who were found to be running a fever were isolated in a nearby hospital. The remaining passengers were placed in home quarantine – sent there with information pamphlets about Covid-19 that had already been printed in the local language, Malayalam. The hospitalised patients tested positive for Covid-19, but the disease had been contained. “The first part was a victory,” says Shailaja. “But the virus continued to spread beyond China and soon it was everywhere.”

In late February, encountering one of Shailaja’s surveillance teams at the airport, a Malayali family returning from Venice was evasive about its travel history and went home without submitting to the now-standard controls. By the time medical personnel detected a case of Covid-19 and traced it back to them, their contacts were in the hundreds. Contact tracers tracked them all down, with the help of advertisements and social media, and they were placed in quarantine. Six developed Covid-19.

Another cluster had been contained, but by now large numbers of overseas workers were heading home to Kerala from infected Gulf states, some of them carrying the virus. On 23 March, all flights into the state’s four international airports were stopped. Two days later, India entered a nationwide lockdown.

At the height of the virus in Kerala, 170,000 people were quarantined and placed under strict surveillance by visiting health workers, with those who lacked an inside bathroom housed in improvised isolation units at the state government’s expense. That number has shrunk to 21,000. “We have also been accommodating and feeding 150,000 migrant workers from neighbouring states who were trapped here by the lockdown,” she says. “We fed them properly – three meals a day for six weeks.” Those workers are now being sent home on charter trains.

Shailaja was already a celebrity of sorts in India before Covid-19. Last year, a movie called Virus was released, inspired by her handling of an outbreak of an even deadlier viral disease, Nipah, in 2018. (She found the character who played her a little too worried-looking; in reality, she has said, she couldn’t afford to show fear.) She was praised not only for her proactive response, but also for visiting the village at the centre of the outbreak.

The villagers were terrified and ready to flee, because they did not understand how the disease was spreading. “I rushed there with my doctors, we organised a meeting in the panchayat [village council] office and I explained that there was no need to leave, because the virus could only spread through direct contact,” she says. “If you kept at least a metre from a coughing person, it couldn’t travel. When we explained that, they became calm – and stayed.”

Nipah prepared Shailaja for Covid-19, she says, because it taught her that a highly contagious disease for which there is no treatment or vaccine should be taken seriously. In a way, though, she had been preparing for both outbreaks all her life.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), of which she is a member, has been prominent in Kerala’s governments since 1957, the year after her birth. (It was part of the Communist Party of India until 1964, when it broke away.) Born into a family of activists and freedom fighters – her grandmother campaigned against untouchability – she watched the so-called “Kerala model” be assembled from the ground up; when we speak, this is what she wants to talk about.

The foundations of the model are land reform – enacted via legislation that capped how much land a family could own and increased land ownership among tenant farmers – a decentralised public health system and investment in public education. Every village has a primary health centre and there are hospitals at each level of its administration, as well as 10 medical colleges.

This is true of other states, too, says MP Cariappa, a public health expert based in Pune, Maharashtra state, but nowhere else are people so invested in their primary health system. Kerala enjoys the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality of any state in India; it is also the most literate state. “With widespread access to education, there is a definite understanding of health being important to the wellbeing of people,” says Cariappa.

Shailaja says: “I heard about those struggles – the agricultural movement and the freedom fight – from my grandma. She was a very good storyteller.” Although emergency measures such as the lockdown are the preserve of the national government, each Indian state sets its own health policy. If the Kerala model had not been in place, she insists, her government’s response to Covid-19 would not have been possible.

That said, the state’s primary health centres had started to show signs of age. When Shailaja’s party came to power in 2016, it undertook a modernisation programme. One pre-pandemic innovation was to create clinics and a registry for respiratory disease – a big problem in India. “That meant we could spot conversion to Covid-19 and look out for community transmission,” Shailaja says. “It helped us very much.”

When the outbreak started, each district was asked to dedicate two hospitals to Covid-19, while each medical college set aside 500 beds. Separate entrances and exits were designated. Diagnostic tests were in short supply, especially after the disease reached wealthier western countries, so they were reserved for patients with symptoms and their close contacts, as well as for random sampling of asymptomatic people and those in the most exposed groups: health workers, police and volunteers.

Shailaja says a test in Kerala produces a result within 48 hours. “In the Gulf, as in the US and UK – all technologically fit countries – they are having to wait seven days,” she says. “What is happening there?” She doesn’t want to judge, she says, but she has been mystified by the large death tolls in those countries: “I think testing is very important – also quarantining and hospital surveillance – and people in those countries are not getting that.” She knows, because Malayalis living in those countries have phoned her to say so.

Places of worship were closed under the rules of lockdown, resulting in protests in some Indian states, but resistance has been noticeably absent in Kerala – in part, perhaps, because its chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, consulted with local faith leaders about the closures. Shailaja says Kerala’s high literacy level is another factor: “People understand why they must stay at home. You can explain it to them.”

The Indian government plans to lift the lockdown on 17 May (the date has been extended twice). After that, she predicts, there will be a huge influx of Malayalis to Kerala from the heavily infected Gulf region. “It will be a great challenge, but we are preparing for it,” she says. There are plans A, B and C, with plan C – the worst-case scenario – involving the requisitioning of hotels, hostels and conference centres to provide 165,000 beds. If they need more than 5,000 ventilators, they will struggle – although more are on order – but the real limiting factor will be manpower, especially when it comes to contact tracing. “We are training up schoolteachers,” Shailaja says.

Once the second wave has passed – if, indeed, there is a second wave – these teachers will return to schools. She hopes to do the same, eventually, because her ministerial term will finish with the state elections a year from now. Since she does not think the threat of Covid-19 will subside any time soon, what secret would she like to pass on to her successor? She laughs her infectious laugh, because the secret is no secret: “Proper planning.”

Aditya Chakrabortty references the relative success of the state government Kerala in meeting the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic in his Opinion piece on Health policy. This piece was published in the print edition of the Guardian on Thursday 14 May 2020 under the headline:

Covid-19 has exposed a huge health issue - inequality

Aditya Chakrabortty's Opinion piece was first published as a Guardian webpage (Wed 13 May 2020) under the headline: 

Right now, the only thing staving off a collapse in the social order is the state 

He writes:

In 1918 the Spanish flu was slaughtering tens of millions around the world, yet in Paris the highest death rates were concentrated along the richest boulevards. This baffled scientists ­– until they realised that it wasn’t wealthy people whose eyes were bleeding, whose skin was blackening, whose corpses were piling up. It was their servants.

While les riches enjoyed high ceilings and grand balconies, their domestics were crammed below stairs in dark, dirty, suffocating rooms­. They never stood a chance. One out of four women in Paris killed by the outbreak was a maid. As Laura Spinney notes in her history Pale Rider: “The flu may have been democratic … but the society it struck was not.”

Those words came to mind this morning, watching the TV coverage of London commuters going back to work. Here was the metropolitan working class ­– typically black, Asian, eastern European – squeezing themselves off a packed bus. Meanwhile, their political masters eased themselves out of their ministerial Jags and into Downing Street.

Countries have underlying health conditions too, easily preyed on by a virus. In the UK those chronic ailments include a government of bluffers, a society deformed by inequality and a public sector drained of both cash and confidence. They account for many of the 50,000 excess deaths over the past few weeks and the utter chaos in Westminster. You know the litany as well as I do: how Boris Johnson wasted precious weeks through lethal complacency; the multiple failures around equipment including ventilators and PPE; Matt Hancock’s Potemkin testing regime.

From Australia to Germany, politicians and newspapers are warning their people that, whatever happens, they really, really don’t want to end up like the Brits.

Still, it must be said: coronavirus has not ruined the UK; it has exposed the systemic ruin already here.

What does national ruin look like? It is Hancock urging industry to churn out ventilators, only to realise that his Tory party had long ago destroyed the manufacturing base. Or cabinet ministers feigning control, even as the outsourcing firms they depend on to buy the NHS essential gowns, gloves and masks fail again and again.

When one of the richest societies in human history has done less to protect its population from coronavirus than the Indian state of Kerala, that tells you that pandemic-hit UK’s problem is neither a lack of cash nor an absence of knowledge. It is an unwillingness at the top of government to see our society as a collective where everyone matters rather than, say, a herd.

These are the norms of today’s Britain, and they are simply not normal. Yet in England this week we begin the slow and risky stagger right back to the broken social settlement that landed us in this catastrophe. Because however botched and fudged the announcements on the exit from the lockdown, that is where we are going. Offered a return to normal life, who among us would not seize it? To hug family and friends again, to wander without worry, or to pop into a shop ­– just because? But that is not the normality demanded by Iain Duncan Smith, Steve Baker and other Tories on the hard right. Just listen to their language. For them, the priority is get things back to the way they were and to hell with the scientific advice.

Never mind that experts reportedly believe the UK is racking up 18,000 new infections every day, more than four times the government target. Get businesses humming! Run the NHS hot! Not a whisper about paying essential workers more, or funding public services. Nothing about fostering strategic industries or shortening supply chains for food or crucial supplies. No lessons learned, no regrets earned. On the contrary, many would be delighted by today’s leak of Treasury plans for a freeze in public sector pay.

This is the leave brigade and they have found their new cause: Get Exit Done. Even if you accept their premise, the argument still runs into two massive roadblocks. The first is that further waves of infection will very effectively derail the economy. At this moment any country’s economic strategy is essentially its health strategy, and its health strategy is to a large extent its public communications strategy, which is why this week’s national confusion over who can do what, where and with whom is so disastrous.

When in 1918 the Spanish flu hit America, cities from Pittsburgh to Seattle responded in very different ways. Some locked down for three weeks; others for 10. What was the result? Surely, your average Tory backbencher or puckish columnist would say, it’s obvious: the harder you hit the virus, the greater the harm to the economy. In fact, the opposite is true, according to analysis published this March by three economists, two of them at the US central bank. They find the economies of “cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively do not perform worse and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over”.

The title of the economists’ study says it all: “Pandemics depress the economy, public health interventions do not.” I have not seen it quoted anywhere by the hard exiters or the supposedly science-hungry cabinet. Funny that.

The second big argument against the desire for economic normality is that no such thing exists right now. The UK is heading for its worst recession in three centuries, according to the Bank of England. The announcement this week by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, that he will extend his £60bn furlough scheme, paying most of the wages of 7.5 million private-sector staff until at least autumn is not only the right thing to do ­– switching off the programme could lead to very scary politics.

Millions who consider themselves temporarily idle employees, many with a mortgage, would plunge through a trapdoor into the ranks of the unemployed. The result of that huge collective drop in status, income and living standards could quite easily be a collapse in social order, and a rise in extremism.

That is the prospect hanging over us ­– and not just this year. The Bank forecasts that 2021 will be the year of the bounceback, the V-shaped recovery. Such a scenario seems to me utter fantasy. Pubs, cafe and theatres will shut by the score, many more businesses will run out of cash and time. At the end of the summer, the class of 2020 will leave school, graduate from university ­– and there will be scarcely any jobs for them.

For now and for a while to come, pretty much the only thing keeping the UK and the US ticking over is the state. The government is borrowing historic amounts to bail out households and prop up companies and those loans are being swallowed by another arm of the state, the central bank. This is the same strategy as we saw after the crash of 2008 ­– only this time moving much faster and at far greater scale. Whatever the fantasies of getting back to normal, there is nothing normal about this new world. And it will get stranger yet.

Greenwashing (see previous post) . . .

. . . in the age of extinction?

This story is about the practical instruments available to a community of states, in this case the European Union. The Guardian's The age of extinction series is supported by the BAND Foundation and Wysss Foundation.

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Shaun Walker in Budapest report on the EU plans to mitigate huge biodiversity loss across Europe through the planting of three billion trees (Tue 19 May 2020). They write:

The European commission will launch a sweeping effort to tackle the global biodiversity crisis on Wednesday, including a call for 3bn trees to be planted in the EU by 2030 and a plan to better protect the continent’s last primeval forests.

The draft policy document, published online by an environmental NGO, admits that to date in the EU, “protection has been incomplete, restoration has been small-scale, and the implementation and enforcement of legislation has been insufficient”.

Scientists and environmental groups, commenting on the leaked draft of the strategy, say that while the new goals are welcome and impressive, there is a still distinct lack of tools with which to implement them.

“It’s a good and ambitious document, but what is also obvious is the lack of strategy of how to implement it, and a lack of discussion of why previous documents of this type failed,” said Przemysław Chylarecki of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The new strategy calls for nearly one-third of EU land and sea to become protected zones. Currently, 26% of land and 11% of seas are classed as protected areas, but the European commission acknowledges this has not been enough to tackle the degradation of the natural world and threat of extinction to some birds and animals. Environmentalists say even these previous targets for protection have not been met in practice.

“The proposed strategy lacks game-changing ideas and instruments for reaching the targets. We already know today that existing frameworks are not delivering, so why should we wait,” said Robert Cyglicki, programme director of Greenpeace in central and eastern Europe.

He welcomed the new strategy but said it would be 2024 before it became clear if new binding measures would be adopted, and called for immediate discussions over funding and enforcement mechanisms.

Some elements of the programme, such as protecting migratory bird populations, are hard to implement without a global approach, and the paper calls on the EU to intensify efforts to make biodiversity a central part of its diplomacy.

It concludes that global efforts to tackle the biodiversity crisis under the auspices of the UN have been “insufficient to halt the loss of the world’s biodiversity”.

It will also turn the spotlight on the EU’s €60bn-a-year common agricultural policy, which has been criticised for fuelling a steep decline in nature, with a call for a quarter of the EU’s agricultural land to be organically farmed by 2030.

Environmentalists warned the plan’s headline target to plant at least 3bn trees by 2030, “in full respect of ecological principles”, should only be a small part of the solution.

“Planting 3bn trees is a really spectacular and visual goal, but it has been shown that planting new trees is not a panacea and doesn’t always help,” said Chylarecki.

More important will be the goal to map, monitor and “strictly protect” the EU’s last remaining primeval forests, which have survived in almost every member state, but remain threatened by human activity, such as illegal logging.

These older forests provide a natural shield against climate change, but in many countries have been preyed on by logging companies, with national governments either ignoring the situation or lacking the resources to properly police logging.

“We believe an integrated approach that also includes smart financial mechanisms and social aspects is the key aspect of a future European biodiversity governance framework,” said Romania’s environment minister, Costel Alexe, who has said he wants to better protect the large area of old-growth forests in the country.

César Luena, a Spanish socialist MEP and vice-chair of the European parliament’s environment committee, agreed that the 2030 targets “will need to be covered by legislation to make them binding” on member states.

“If the new strategy remains just a collection of ideas, nothing will ever happen,” he said in emailed comments. He said the strategy “seems more ambitious than the previous one but there are still areas for improvement”.

Luena said EU member states needed to comply with existing laws, noting that in the last week alone, the European commission launched legal action against 19 governments over failures on EU environmental law – a tally of charges far from unusual in the commission’s monthly round up of infringement proceedings.

Sweden and Latvia have been accused of not implementing parts of the EU’s birds and habitats directives, Malta is faulted for not conserving endangered bluefin tuna, while France, Cyprus and Lithuania are said to have neglected to write EU air pollution standards into national law.

The EU should also offer funding benefits for those governments serious about hitting targets, said campaigners.

“At the EU level we need some sort of financial stimulus that would make it attractive for countries to focus on biodiversity,” said Marta Grundland, a campaigner with Greenpeace Poland.

“Right now, I don’t feel it’s a EU priority or a national priority. After climate this is the second biggest threat we are facing, and it’s all connected. If we want to help with the climate crisis we should also tackle the biodiversity crisis.”

Bats and coronavirus - Learn More

The Connection Between Bats and Coronavirus: Wildlife is not to blame from Kristin Tieche on Vimeo.