Celebrity Nonsense, Eating Disorder, Letters, Taxing Millionaires, CEO Pay

 

Elephant in the Room
Hannah Stewart (b. 1976) and Chierol Lai (b. 1995)
Photo Credit: Queen Mary, University of London [ CC BY-NC]

Throughout the pandemic we have been urged to put our faith in science... and at the very time we need expert, authoritative advice on the efficacy and reliability of the vaccine, we are urged instead to put our faith in Lulu and Michael Palin.

The Government's leaked plan to enlist "very sensible" celebrities to encourage the public to take up the vaccine (alongside the others, like Palin, who have thrust themselves forward), could be seen as the ultimate expression of the age of the influencer.

For much of the year, we have been paying earnest attention to the latest scientific advice...We know more about epidemiology than we ever thought possible. We understand the R rate. We can expostulate on the pros and cons of herd immunity.

But now, when we want to hear from those who really know about, for instance, the potential dangers of the vaccine, and to answer the question that if it's 94 per cent effective, what happens to the other 6 per cent, we will be directed towards sports stars, chat show hosts and pop singers for reassurance...

I understand that the Government has to deploy any tactic it can to confront the anti-vax movement, but I wonder whether this idea takes us further along the road towards a society where the only measure of trust is fame.

What message does it send to the ranks of scientists who have laboured day and night to ensure that we are the first developed nation to have a vaccine? We are really grateful for your hard work but now we have to see if Olivia Colman is available to sell it to the public...

It would be a welcome move if he (Michael Gove) could repudiate those words ("I think the people of this country have had enough of experts") by paying tribute to the experts he once derided. It would do society a service if he explained that, in all walks of life, we should put our trust in those who really understand what they're talking about. Instead, he is more likely to be on the phone to Christopher Biggins' agent.

(Simon Kelner, The i, 2020)

Listen to Lulu when she's talking about pop music. Listen to Palin when he's talking about travel or humour. Listen to Colman when she's talking about acting. They are experts in those fields. Once they start veering away from their particular expertise, the critical spirit and a healthy scepticism should automatically become more heightened. 

This article, sadly, also reflects on some/many of the "general public" putting their faith in celebrity culture and fame rather than trusting  the  scientific evidence put forward by experts in their field. It is a reflection on the shallowness of some aspects of modern day culture showing a deficiency of independent thinking and action.  

By the way, didn't the Russians, by any criteria, a developed nation, begin their vaccination programme before the UK even if  their programme was started, so we are told, before all the test results were complete?

*...Moscow launched a mass vaccination programme on Saturday, with people aged 18-60 who are employed in healthcare, education and social services first in line for the jab.

(World Coronavirus News, The Times, 2020)

Contrary to Simon Kelner's assumption I am not one of those "who have thrust themselves forward" in an attempt to encourage the public to take up the vaccine.

I was rung by a journalist from the Sunday Mirror and asked if I would take it myself. I said I would. That's about as far as the thrusting went.

(Michael Palin, The i, 2020)

Eating Disorder

Patients Waiting to See the Doctor, with Figures Representing their Fears
Rosemary Carson (b. 1962)
Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection [CC BY]

...When lockdown was announced in March, part of me was excited - this was my chance to control what I was eating and exercise every day. I was going to emerge skinnier, toned and "healthier". Things didn't quite turn out like that. Gyms were closed, we were permitted to leave our flat only once a day, and cooking and eating every meal with my partner meant I lost my usual control.

Sat on my sofa, aching from five days of exercise and anxious about how much butter my boyfriend was putting in our dinner, I realised how exhausted of it all I was. The pandemic also made me see that life is too short to spend it like this.

I threw out our scales, deleted my calorie-tracking apps and replaced them with meditation ones, unfollowed anyone on Instagram who made me feel like crap, and got rid of clothes that no longer fit. I felt free, eating what I felt like and exercising when I wanted to.

But then I began to put on weight. I really struggled. Some nights I couldn't sleep. So obsessed with how much cellulite was on my thighs, I had a panic attack...

Pre-lockdown I would have remedied this by working harder in the gym or eating less for a few days. But I tried not to give in and instead recognised the panic I was experiencing for what it is - an eating disorder - and told myself the feeling will pass...

I have unfollowed the "fitspiration" hashtag on Instagram and stopped myself scrolling through "what I eat in a day" posts, and know to avoid any TV show about diets and bodies...

I haven't found complete peace with my body, but I have found peace in being able to not fixate on it.

(Aimee Meade, The i, 2020)

Interesting to read how many "media connections" were replaced or abandoned and that her decision to confront her eating disorder was undertaken by herself without any medical intervention. Would it be right to say, in this particular case, the primary motivation came from the individual concerned and not from any outside agency?

Letters

A Portrait of a Man with a Bandaged Head
unknown artist
Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection [Public Domain]

Sir, Carol Midgley's piece on her love of Coronation Street reminded me of my favourite line from the show. Jack Duckworth arrived for work in the Rover's Return wearing his smartest clothes. Bet Lynch, the landlady, looked him up and down and said: "I've seen wounds better dressed."

It's a line that has remained with me ever since, although I have never had the courage to say it to anyone.

(Jenifer Sims, London SE9, The times, 2020)

Sir, Vienna is indeed a city filled with the intellectual and cultured. On my last visit I observed that the underground trains had books provided for the enjoyment of passengers, hooked on to the carriage wall between facing seats.

(Stephen Knight, Barnet, Herts, The Times, 2020)

Taxing Millionaires

A funny thing happened in Buenos Aries last Friday: parliamentarians there voted by a chunky majority to slap super-rich Argentines with a tax to pay for the economic damage done by Covid. Anyone sitting on wealth of over 200m Argentinian pesos (£1.8m) will have to pay a one-off levy that the government hopes will raise billions to buy medical equipment, support small businesses, and help poor neighbourhoods. The so-called "millionaire's tax" was a remarkable move that has been noted around the world, along with the justification provided by one senator: "We must find points of connection between those who have the most to contribute and those who need it."...

(In the UK) The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (forecast) that the Covid recession will see 2 million families, and a million children, struggling to feed and clean themselves or to keep warm...

Another is the government's projection that this tax year it will run up a budget deficit of close to £400bn...

Authored by a team of tax experts, it (The Wealth Tax Commission) demonstrates that a one-off 1% wealth tax levied on millionaire households would raise up to £260bn - equivalent to increasing VAT by 6% or putting 9p on the basic rate of income tax...

Before this report, there has been no serious work on designing a wealth tax for almost half a century, during which time the gap between rich and poor has grown sharply...

(Editorial, The Guardian, 2020)

(See Tax Rises, Oct 6, 2020)

CEO Pay

Unions have described firms that pay their chief executives huge multiples compared with the wages of average workers as obscene and have called on ministers and shareholders to end the "runaway train" of inequality.

A report by the High Pay Centre thinktank yesterday revealed that...Ocado's CEO, Tim Steiner, was paid £58.7m last year - that is 2,605 times the £22,500 paid to the firm's staff on average. It means Steiner was paid as much as the average Ocado worker's annual salary over one day of working.

In second place was JD Sports, which paid its chief executive, Peter Cowgill, £5.6m, but paid staff an average of £18,300. Cowgill's pay was 310 times the median average.

Tesco took third place for paying the CEO 305 times the median pay.

Lawrence Turner, head of research at the GMB union said:

"This shocking and important report provides a vivid snapshot of the staggering inequalities and exploitation... There is no business or moral justification for paying an executive an obscene ratio of more than 2,000 times the average worker. Action is needed, especially at a time when hundreds of thousands of jobs are under threat and households are struggling to make ends meet. Ministers, employers and shareholders must put an end to this runaway train."

The report showed that across the UK's 100 biggest stock market listed companies CEOs collected 73 times that paid to workers on average.

The High Pay Centre showed that the biggest pay gaps were in retail, where on average bosses were paid 140 times that of staff. The smallest gap was in financial services, with a ratio of 35:1.

(Rupert Neate, The Guardian, 2020)

(See CEO Pay, Oct 23 and Boardroom Pay, Jan 7, 2020)