Matthew Parris's take in the Times - The big difference between Britain and Sweden is that their politicians are decisive and so the public has trust in them
"Our leaders seem clueless about Covid"
It was literally only an instant and decades ago, but never will I forget those few seconds when climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. We had chosen the beautiful but difficult “western breach” route. Hours before dawn, in the thin, freezing air beneath the summit, we reached the edge of a great tilted sheet of iced snow. Must we now traverse this — steep as a roof, and sloping down to our right into a starlit infinity? Might someone slip? We three and our African guide gathered at the edge.
It was then that I caught our guide’s eye. He’d been taking a sneak glance up through rocks to our left, looking for a safer way. Eyes met. I’d realised he was not confident and he realised I now knew it. Nothing was said, but for me, exhausted, breathless and cold, it was utterly discouraging. He led us across the ice slope without mishap. But he had lost my trust.
I write after a trip to Sweden. I’m a lockdown-sceptic who admires what that country, guided by its state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, has done to keep things running normally, so my report may surprise you. I was struck by many similarities (in practical terms) between the Swedish and the British approach to Covid-19. Indeed a month ago Dr Tegnell said preparation was under way for local lockdowns, believing this might prove necessary (though so far it has not). There is no flat theoretical contradiction between Sweden’s approach and ours, at least so far as ours can be discerned.
The really big difference, I sensed, was not about rules at all, but about popular trust. Trust is key. Trust, not that a government’s policy is necessarily right, but that government does have a policy.
Stockholm, where we started, is not (as we British used to giggle) some kind of cold-climate, stripped-pine arcadia where anything goes, everyone eats meatballs and earns about the same, and moral stricture is limited to po-faced seminars on lesbian equality and Third World nutrition. No, Stockholm is a grand imperial capital, with the quiet showiness and proud sense of exceptionalism that flows, if not in the recollection then in the bloodstream, of a people who once led a great European empire. And despite their almost empty infinity of lake and forest, this is a nation of city-dwellers, townies and villagers, most living cheek-by-jowl as we do. There are rich and poor, there are beggars and braggarts and druggies and drunks, there are smart restaurants, pavement cafés on every corner, and, from the splendid state museums and galleries to the cavernous underground railway concourses, a sense everywhere of style and of the monumental.
“Thank you for keeping your distance”, say messages on Stockholm’s impressive public transport system. And, politely, they do keep their distance, at least as much as here. They don’t wear masks because they’re unconvinced masks work, and they kept their primary schools (and now all schools and universities) open. Well-spaced restaurants and bars never closed, but capacity on public transport reduced (though not as much as ours) and many people worked, and still work, from home. Laws have not proved necessary.
And so it has become the conventional wisdom that the difference between Sweden and Britain is that “community cohesion” keeps Swedes obedient, because everybody wants to do the same thing and be of one mind, while we British lack this kind of team spirit. It’s an easy explanation. But talking to people in Stockholm and Gothenburg I’ve concluded that it’s not the whole, or even perhaps the main, truth. Which brings me back to that moment on the icy slopes of a mountain, and the question of trust. Not in each other, but in the guides.
There is a delicate but acute difference between following our leaders and agreeing with them. By no means do Swedes all agree with their government’s light-touch hand on the Covid-policy tiller. Some hero-worship Tegnell; others emphatically don’t. I have spoken to a former Swedish prime minister who thinks this government’s Tegnell-led approach is reckless. Rikard, a thoughtful young Swedish barman with whom I discussed the controversy, took the opposite view, criticising the authorities for closing late-night clubs. Clubs would not (he thought) become infection hotspots. Rikard was more worried about loneliness among single people. A café-proprietor we met on our walk in the offshore islands near Gothenburg (its city streets busy with merry groups of university students) said she avoided the city. Opinions, in short, are various.
But there’s one thing all these different Swedes can see. Policy is being led by a government that believes in what it is doing, and believes in its own chief epidemiologist. There’s a sense of moral and intellectual confidence. There is clarity. They know where they are.
For a people to see in its leaders decisiveness and a settled sense of direction gives a lighthouse-like reassurance. And the opposite is true. Once a people begin to fear that their leaders themselves do not know what to do — are not themselves confident — a chill enters the nation’s soul: and enters ours now, this autumn.
Had I been alive during the Second World War I would have sensed fear that we might lose, but no disarray in our leaders. As a young MP during the Falklands crisis I was unsure of the wisdom of going to war, yet still felt that unifying sense that there was a plan. As a Times columnist I railed against the Iraq war, the occupation of Afghanistan, the assault on Libya, and now Brexit: but in every case I could see there was a firm policy in which our leaders believed. So opposition, yes. Anger, even. But to beat your fists against a solid policy is nowhere near so disconcerting as to beat your fists against . . . well, what is the policy with Covid-19? I think our cabinet, if it even deserves that name, is all at sea and close to despair.
Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak run for the cover of their job titles and go full tilt for saving lives/saving livelihoods, each ducking the big decision about balance. A demoralised Whitehall keeps its head down, while government health advisers are nonplussed that lockdown levers in Liverpool seem disconnected from their will-o’-the-wisp “R-number”.
Reader, if government decided to give the economy another kicking to “beat” the virus, I’d be scared. And if government decided to protect the economy by risking your health, you’d be scared. Now we’re all scared. Did I catch Boris Johnson’s eye sneaking a glance in Sweden’s direction? Or did I just imagine it? No matter. It’s too late.
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