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New Times New Thinking | 17-23 September 2021 | £4.99 | newstatesman.com
The Fateful Chancellor
Angela Merkel and the end of an era. By Jeremy Cliffe
Sophie McBain
on trans rights and
the politics of gender
Gordon Brown
Emma Raducanu’s Britain
is a rebuke to nationalists
Sarah Manavis
on mastering the
mental game of tennis
38
9 771364 743186
2021+38+Merkel_03.indd 1 14/09/2021 11:59:31
20-00_ads.indd 1 05/08/2021 16:49:53
Established 1913
The choice
facing Germany
T
he departure of Angela Merkel after 16 years as dogmatic fiscal hawkishness – would be bad for Ger-
chancellor is a defining moment for Germany many and Europe, and frustrate the necessary rebalanc-
and Europe. As our international editor ing and reform of the eurozone.
Jeremy Cliffe writes in his cover essay, over her The post-communist Left party is a broad spectrum,
decade and a half as chancellor she has supplied with both centre-left and hard-line factions. Some of its
pragmatic, non-ideological leadership and contained a social and economic policies are reasonable. But its
succession of crises, but she has also been too reactive foreign policy stances are alarming, sceptical of Nato and
and too reluctant to shape events, grapple with the dismally ambivalent towards anti-Western autocrats.
forces of history and prepare Germany and the continent When asked recently “Biden or Putin?” even one of its
for the challenges of the future. Together the leading moderates declined to state a preference.
Ms Merkel bequeaths to her successor a mighty stack Greens and the The best options for Germany are the SPD – until
of unfinished business. Germany’s next chancellor must SPD represent recently in deep decline, like the British Labour Party –
accelerate progress towards carbon neutrality; modernise the best chance and the Greens. The former’s policies, such as a minimum
its infrastructure, state and industrial model; work with of being the wage increase to €12 an hour and 400,000 new homes a
European partners such as France to fix the eurozone’s new reforming year, represent sensible social democratic politics. More
weaknesses; and equip the country for a world where the government open to the investment needed at home and the reforms
old comforts of the American security umbrella can no Germany needs needed in the wider eurozone, its economic instincts are
longer be taken for granted. Particularly, in such a world, right for the moment. In Olaf Scholz it has a serious chan-
and in the aftermath of Brexit, Britain too should root for cellor candidate with a record of effective leadership (he
dynamic, progressive new leadership in Berlin. is Merkel's deputy in the grand coalition). The Greens are
It has been a dramatic election campaign in Germany. superior to the SPD on both the climate and foreign
In the spring the centre-left Greens surged; then Merkel’s policy (more robust on Russia and China, for example).
centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian And while their chancellor candidate, Annalena Baerbock,
Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) alliance reasserted its poll- lacks executive experience, she has fought a gutsy cam-
ing primacy; then, more recently, the centre-left Social paign. Together the two parties represent the best chance
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) surged past both of being the new reforming government Germany needs.
and into the lead. The New Statesman has been covering The polling would put them together on about 45 per
it all closely from Berlin, as part of our digital and inter- cent of the Bundestag seats, which would require them
national expansion. As our coverage and audiences to form a three-party coalition with the FDP or the Left
widen, so does our responsibility to offer our readers to secure a majority. But a couple more points of support
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
orientation. So, at this German election, for the first time, for each over the final ten days before the election would
we are expressing a preference on the outcome. get them across the line and make a cohesive, two-party,
The long Merkel years have left her CDU/CSU hol- SPD-Green government possible.
lowed out and short of ideas. Its chancellor candidate, Which of the two should Germans back? Were they
Armin Laschet, is weak, in his own party and in the coun- neck-and-neck, Green strengths on the climate and for-
try, and his campaign has been dominated by gaffes and eign policy might well tip the balance. But in a relatively
false steps. He represents plodding continuity in a close race it is important that at least one of them secures
Germany that needs more impetus. a clear lead over the CDU/CSU and thus an unambiguous
The conservative-liberal Free Democrats (FDP) have claim to the Merkel succession. Scholz’s party has the
more reforming vim but their economic policies – tax cuts best chance of doing that. If the New Statesman had a vote
that would disproportionately benefit the richest, and in this election, it would be for the SPD. O
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 3
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17-23 September 2021
IN THIS ISSUE
22
The history chancellor
Jeremy Cliffe on Angela Merkel’s legacy
30
The psychology of winning
Sarah Manavis on her life as a teenage tennis champion
34
Keir Starmer’s struggle
The Labour leader talks to Stephen Bush
40
The fidget business
End of an era: Germany after Angela Merkel
Will Dunn on the story behind a global craze
46
How to be rational
Simon Kuper on Steven Pinker’s mission
52
Gender trouble
Sophie McBain on the politics of trans rights
58
The mental game of tennis
A search for meaning
Ray Monk on the philosophy of Wittgenstein
Tractatus, 100 years on
Please note that all submissions to the letters page, our competitions and reader offers are accepted solely subject to our terms and conditions: details available on our website. Subscription rates:
UK £119.99; Europe €159.99; Rest of World US$199.99. Syndication/permissions/archive email: permissions@newstatesman.co.uk. Printed by Walstead Peterborough Ltd, tel +44 (0)1733 555 567.
Distribution by Marketforce. The New Statesman (ISSN 1364-7431) is published weekly by New Statesman Ltd, 12-13 Essex Street, London WC2R 3AA, UK. Registered as a newspaper in the UK and USA
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 7
2021+37 007 contents.indd 7 14/09/2021 21:30:02
On newstatesman.com
MORE IN THIS ISSUE
Comment
Up front The Critics: Books Martin Fletcher
A decade of Johnson would be disastrous
3 Leader 46 Simon Kuper on – but Labour’s failures could allow it
Rationality by
10 Correspondence
Steven Pinker James Ball
50 Andrew Marr on Andrew Neil’s vision of GB News
Columns The Radical Potter by was always doomed to fail
21 Tim Ross on the Tristram Hunt
Emily Tamkin
future of Sajid Javid 52 Sophie McBain on Why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Met
29 Gordon Brown on why The Transgender Issue Gala gown won’t change the system
nationalists are losing by Shon Faye and
Trans by Helen Joyce Philippa Nuttall
33 Ruth Davidson on How Norway’s left triumphed
well-being in Scotland 55 Leo Robson on Intimacies
in a climate election
by Katie Kitamura
39 Philip Collins on the new
pessimism of Brexiteers 57 Reviewed in Short
62 The NS Poem by Podcasts
John Burnside
The Notebook
The NS Podcast
13 Jonathan Liew on
Stephen Bush, Anoosh Chakelian and
Emma Raducanu The Critics: Arts
Ailbhe Rea discuss the week in Westminster
15 Diary by John Simpson 58 Ray Monk on 100 years and beyond, and (try to) answer listeners’
of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus questions. Digital subscribers get early,
16 Oscar Williams speaks to
ad-free episodes.
Margrethe Vestager 63 Film: Ryan Gilbey
newstatesman.com/podcast
on Rose Plays Julie
18 In the Picture
64 Television: Rachel Cooke World Review
on Channel 4’s Help Jeremy Cliffe and Emily Tamkin are joined
Features by special guests to explore the forces
65 Radio: Anna Leszkiewicz
22 Jeremy Cliffe on Germany shaping global affairs.
on What’s Funny About…
after Angela Merkel newstatesman.com/world-review-podcast
30 Sarah Manavis on the
The Back Pages
mental game of tennis
67 Gardening: Alice Vincent
34 Stephen Bush interviews
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13:31:41
I love the new look, the font, the layout.
But can I, ever so gently, protest at the use
of the word “foreground” as a verb in
Jason Cowley’s Editor’s Note? I know
pedantry is irritating, but I’m beyond help.
Chris Mason, presenter, BBC Radio 4’s
“Any Questions?”, London SE7
letters@newstatesman.co.uk
Out of batteries
Jeremy Cliffe gives an excellent account of
the worryingly dominant position of China
in the supply of lithium (World View, 10
September). What can be done about it?
Letter of the week Lithium batteries are very expensive
and likely to become more so. We should
Paying for power aim to dispense with them and, in the
meantime, use as few as possible. There are
Having read Adam Tooze’s interesting and well-presented article (“The new age concerns that there are insufficient
materials to make the batteries that would
of American power”, 10 September) from beginning to end I failed to find a single
be necessary for all car-owners to drive
mention of how such a grand ambition will be funded – presumably because it is electric cars. But there are alternatives. We
all based on some kind of pyramid scheme where the US government continues should expand the biomethane industry.
to print dollar bills and relies on the rest of the world to buy its debt. This is a Such methane is carbon-neutral and is
house built on shifting sands. All the guns and missiles and ships in the world are extremely mobile, being lighter than petrol
not going to add up to anything if de-dollarisation takes hold, and I think you or diesel. If we were to allow plug-in hybrid
electric vehicles to continue to be sold
would have to be incredibly short-sighted to believe that China is going to
with biomethane as their back-up fuel, we
continue to allow a dependence on the US dollar. would still be using lithium, but for much
It is hard to forecast when this shift will come, but come it will – and if the US smaller batteries.
is ever deprived of the ability to rack up an ever increasing debt, you will see an Powering more cars safely with
implosion that would make the subprime crisis look like kindergarten. hydrogen is tantalisingly close and does
not require lithium at all. Using
Bob Rogers, Sai Kung, Hong Kong
biomethane as a stop-gap would
accelerate the move away from fossil fuels
and be a more effective use of lithium than
used to it in time. Can I please implore you all-electric vehicles. In this way, we can
A new New Statesman
to retain the letter “u” in words such as avoid the worst of the impacts of a
Congratulations to the team on the new labour, colour and humour, and the letter Chinese-dominated lithium market.
design of the New Statesman magazine. The “s” in words such as recognise, organise Keith Newby, Witton le Wear, Durham
layout is fresh and bright and retains the and apologise. We shall be watching!
insightful analysis I enjoy. But I must confess Paul Kelly, Poole, Dorset
to being disappointed by the new portraits
of the contributors: the old drawings were I read in the Editor’s Note (10 September) The crisis of care
so good I felt I would recognise them if they that “the New Statesman is introducing
passed me in the street, but the new ones a new visual identity for our website Philip Collins needed to spend more time
are more reminiscent of my childhood and magazine”. I turned to page 71 reading about social care (Politics, 10
Beano comics… only to find a very dapper-looking September). Six months after being
Terry Fairhall, Chessington, Surrey Nicholas Lezard. I was taken aback as I elected in 1997 Tony Blair established a
expected a more dishevelled image. He royal commission on the funding of
The new visual identity for the NS is highly looks as smart as the editor. I think a more long-term care for the elderly. The
successful except in one respect: the “Down and Out” look would be in keeping. commission’s report, published in March
portraits of contributors. The full-colour Paul Martin, Leicester 1999, provided a clear analysis of the
portraits were well-executed, highly problems and a comprehensive set of
expressive and, one assumes, good It’s good to see the return of the definite solutions. All of them were ignored in
likenesses. The replacements are, I’m article, and the new typeface is easy to England, although some were picked up
afraid, none of these things. read. However, I hope you did not pay and implemented in Scotland.
Hywel James, Town Yetholm, Scottish Borders Mark Porter very much (Editor’s Note) to Far from ignoring Andrew Dilnot's 2011
come up with nonsense about a wider report on the funding of care, David
Congratulations on your new, very range of colours expressing the plurality Cameron’s coalition passed the 2014 Care
American-looking, international-facing and diversity of the magazine. Act, which set out to address the balance of
magazine design. I am sure we Brits will get Ian Wilson, Thames Ditton, Surrey public and private contributions to the cost
10 The New Statesman | 17-23 September 2021
2021+37 010 letters.indd 10 14/09/2021 21:03:04of care. But after the 2015 general election, integrated and funded. He has introduced further criticisms of his sad life.
Cameron had no need of his erstwhile an arbitrary cap on social care costs that I would like to risk a word in his favour
coalition partners and, under pressure excludes the day-to-day living costs of by mentioning that it was John
from his austerity-driven chancellor, residential care. The Chancellor told BBC Stonehouse as postmaster general in
froze the implementation of the provisions News: “We will make sure that everyone Harold Wilson’s government who
of the act. is able to access what is called the influenced the development of BBC local
More alarming than these deficiencies is deferred-payment agreement… which radio. In the late 1960s the BBC launched
Collins’s failure to address the issue of the means no one will have to sell their house an experiment in local broadcasting with a
market in care, introduced by the Thatcher in their lifetime.” But the cost of the network of eight radio stations, including
government in 1989. It was intended that deferred payment will be recovered from BBC Radio Leeds.
there should be a mixed economy of care the sale price of property and no legacy Edward Lyons, the Labour MP for
with public, private and voluntary sectors will remain. Older people have Bradford East at the time, was impressed
contributing to a more comprehensive offer contributed through taxation and by local radio and used the opportunity of
to consumers. It succeeded in eliminating National Insurance for their entire adult a House of Commons adjournment debate
much public-sector provision because lives. They deserve better. to call for permanent BBC local radio.
government funding was skewed towards Ruth Potter, York When the debate took place late at night
encouraging private-sector entrants. There only Stonehouse and Lyons were present,
will be no answer to the care crisis until a but in the gallery were listeners of Radio
bolder government faces up to this failure, Leeds who had hired a coach to travel
addressing the gap between a free health Ubiquitous US from Leeds to London for the debate.
service and social care based on individual Stonehouse later said that it was their
means testing. It might be in a new format, but the efforts that convinced him of the value
Les Bright, Exeter New Statesman continues to provide a of local radio.
most thorough medium for exploring the Michael McGowan, former education
The government has been forced to hegemony of the US. In addition to the producer, BBC Radio Leeds
grasp the nettle of social care costs cover article “The new age of American
for older people, but for the wrong power” (10 September), the most recent
reasons, and has come up with an issue presents ten pages of discussion on
inadequate solution. the country’s affairs. This fact alone The Brighton bracket
First, the wrong reason. Margaret provides a convincing demonstration of
Thatcher’s Right to Buy was a popular just how cultural hegemony works. In “Down and Out” (10 September) I was
policy, leading to many new property Dr Thom Gorst, Bath intrigued to read that Nicholas Lezard
owners becoming Tory voters. However, thinks that Brighton “is perhaps a little bit
these people are now having to sell their too white”. If you replaced the word
homes to pay for social care and the “white” with any other relating to race or
promised legacy is lost. They are not Stonehouse’s legacy religion you’d be accused of bigotry. Why
happy to have been misled for years. does it not count as such in this instance?
Second, the wrong solution. Boris The review by Andrew Marr of John David Cain, Tonbridge, Kent
Johnson has not addressed the question Stonehouse, My Father by his daughter Julia
of how social care and health should be Stonehouse (Critics, 25 August) has led to We reserve the right to edit letters
Outside the box By Becky Barnicoat
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 11
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20-00_ads.indd 6 22/06/2021 16:59:00DANIELLE PARHIZKARAN / USA TODAY
I
n the history of tennis, 126 women have won a
Grand Slam tournament. Thirty-eight of them have
Newsmaker done so without dropping a set. Twenty-eight were
teenagers at the time of their first win. Twenty-one
were British, although most of those date from an era
when women still routinely played in wide-brimmed
hats and corsets. Nine were unseeded. One had to
come through qualifying simply to reach the
tournament itself. This should offer at least a flavour
of why Emma Raducanu’s victory at the US Open on
11 September is being hailed as one of the most
Emma Raducanu’s unlikely triumphs in the history of the sport.
But, of course, there’s more to it than that. Not until
fairy tale in New York a couple of years ago did Raducanu even settle on
tennis as a career. This was only her second major
By Jonathan Liew tournament, after a stirring run to the fourth round at
Wimbledon earlier this summer. Remarkably, she is yet
to win a match on the main women’s tour, play on clay,
or play a three-set match at senior level. And so really
the only way we can begin to process Raducanu’s
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 13
2021+37 013 Notebook opener + chart.indd 13 14/09/2021 20:57:54victory is to be a little stunned and amazed; to realise narratives, new rivalries, new blood. Men’s tennis has
“This is
that for all the rationales being imposed upon it in spent more than a decade in the cloying grip of
retrospect, it still doesn’t make much sense. the last time Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and their
Raducanu is 18, a skilful player, but nobody’s idea of Raducanu increasingly deranged online fandoms. British tennis
a power hitter or defensive mastermind. She is will ever has spent almost as long fretting about the inevitable
grounded, well-rounded and mentally strong. Since decline of Andy Murray, and for all the best efforts of
Wimbledon, where she withdrew mid-match due to
play totally Johanna Konta (good but not that interesting), Laura
breathing difficulties, she has worked hard on her without Robson (interesting but not that good) and Heather
fitness and conditioning. But we knew this a month expectation” Watson (neither good nor interesting), none of
ago, and yet no one – least of all Raducanu herself, Britain’s most promising female players has really
who had booked herself on to the first flight home threatened to fill the void.
from New York after qualifying – saw this coming. And so into this prison of expectation and longing
How did it happen? In part, she benefited from steps Raducanu, who seems not to care a jot for
circumstances. She was scheduled to meet the world external pressure; who unlike many 18-year-old athletes
number one Ashleigh Barty in round four, the world actually plays and talks like she’s 18. It’s hard to
number four Karolina Pliskova in the semi-finals, and overstate just how much tennis needs this now, after
the big-hitting world number two Aryna Sabalenka in more than a year of empty stadiums and sterile
the final. Instead, all were unexpectedly beaten before bubbles and stale storylines; of exhausted, unhappy
she could face them, giving her a favourable run against players burned out by the endless treadmill of nasal
opponents that suited her high-tempo rallying style. swabs and social media abuse and business hotels.
This, in turn, is a reflection of the unprecedented Emma Raducanu still feels pure and vital and
fluidity in the women’s game: a broad, varied base of relatively untainted by any of this. She is yet to be
talent without a single outstanding dominant player. ground down by tour life or tabloid exposés or internet
The past nine Grand Slams have produced eight trolls. She has not been co-opted into the culture wars.
different winners. This has not, of course, been of the She’s not had a bad run of form, been questioned
remotest interest to large parts of the British media, about why she’s not playing as well as she was. She’s
which in its lavish feting of Raducanu has managed to barely even lost at all. It’s possible to feel exhilarated as
inflate a rather lovely underdog story into a kind of well as sad about this. “This is the last time she will
surreal super-forecasting exercise, predicting billion- ever play totally without expectation,” the former
dollar fortunes and multiple Grand Slam successes. British number one Andrew Castle said. This is what
Part of the reason so much hope has been invested made her winning moment so beautiful, so perfect,
in Raducanu, you feel, is the state of tennis itself, a so fragile, so unrepeatable. Above all, you hope she
sport desperately searching for new faces, new enjoyed it. O
The UK tax system penalises graduates
Marginal tax rates for graduates and non-graduates,
Chart of the Week including the new National Insurance rise
42.25% 33.25% 52.25% 43.25%
The 1.25 per cent rise in National
Insurance means that graduates earning
more than £27,295 will pay a marginal
tax rate of 42.25 per cent once student
loan repayments are included (20 per
Non-graduate earning up to £100,000
Graduate earning more than £50,270
Graduate earning more than £27,295
Non-graduate earning up to £50,270
cent income, 13.25 per cent National
Insurance, 9 per cent loan repayments).
By contrast, a non-graduate earning up
to £50,270 will pay 33.25 per cent.
Source: ONS, HM Land Registry
14 The New Statesman | 17-23 September 2021
2021+37 013 Notebook opener + chart.indd 14 14/09/2021 20:57:56Torkham, the border crossing between Afghanistan and
Pakistan. It was now Soviet territory. I was tempted to
Diary slip away and head towards it but in those days I was
well-behaved, so I climbed meekly onto the press bus
back to Peshawar.
Under the flag of the Islamic Emirate
Joe Biden’s unforgivably careless way of signalling the
US decision to pull out of Afghanistan gifted the
Taliban an easy success. People said that it would be
months before it captured Kabul, but I’d seen the city
fall three times before, and it never took longer than a
Crossing the Khyber Pass, few days.
Many countries have been wrong-footed by
why the Taliban is a Afghanistan’s collapse: the US, Britain, Germany and
France, but also India, which invested money, influence
problem for Imran Khan, and prestige in the country. Only China will benefit.
Pakistan, habitually blamed by Afghans for setting up
and my biblical comeback and arming the Taliban (which it did) and controlling
them (which it has never been able to do), now has a
major problem. The prime minister, Imran Khan,
By John Simpson instinctively shied away from the Taliban and worked
with Afghanistan’s democratically elected Ghani
government. That hasn’t ended well.
The other day, when we reached Torkham, I shook
hands for the sake of the camera with a heavily
bearded Taliban border guard. What was going on, I
asked. “The set-up has changed,” he said ominously.
T
he Khyber: the very thought of being here “Afghanistan used to be democratic. Now the flag of
brought a shiver. The Pass, grim and the Islamic Emirate flies over it.” The Taliban’s leaders
overlooked by fortresses, opened up in front want to show that the group has modernised, but it
of our television team as we stopped to get an has never had any centralised control, and every local
opening shot. It’s one of the most numinous places on warlord or commander is pretty much free to do what
earth, every inch soaked with history and blood. For he wants. That’s how it was last time the group was in
3,000 years, armies have pushed through these narrow, power, and it will probably be the same now.
rocky defiles, camping in the plains where the Pass
broadens out. Darius the Great marched here; Why journalists can’t take a joke
Alexander the Great sent his generals to take the From here I’ll head down to Islamabad, to interview
Khyber route into Afghanistan. Babur, Nader Shah, Imran Khan. Once, years ago, my cameraman and I were
Ahmad Shah Durrani, Ranjit Singh – all came this way. driving with him to an election rally when our car was
An entire army from British India, complete with attacked by an angry mob. He smiled at the yelling faces,
elephants, lumbered through the Pass into Afghanistan waving politely: it made for tremendous footage. Still, he
in 1839 to launch its disastrous campaign. It took more needs to learn that the Western press is utterly literal. I
than half a century for the Raj to seize control here. On last met him with a small group of journalists, two years
12 September 1897, 22 Sikhs defended to the death the ago. “Who do you want to win the Indian election?” we
outpost of Saragarhi against 10,000 Afridi tribesmen. asked. “Well, since your toughest opponent is the best
On the rocks along the Khyber Pass the signs of British one to do a deal with, I suppose it ought to be Narendra
and British Indian regiments are still preserved. Modi,” he laughed. “Imran Khan: I Want PM Modi to Win
I’ve driven through the Pass from Pakistan into Indian Election” was the headline. It took Khan months
Afghanistan a dozen times: usually wearing my normal to get over it; in Pakistan, Modi is regarded as the devil’s
clothes, but sometimes unconvincingly disguised as a younger brother.
Pathan. When my cameraman Peter Jouvenal and I put
on burqas in order to film inside Taliban-controlled Frame of reference
Afghanistan, we were briefly the tallest women in the I first came to As soon as I get back to London we’ll start work on a
country, and the only ones wearing size-ten boots. new programme which I will present on BBC Two.
I first came to the Khyber Pass in January 1980, a the Khyber (The details are still under wraps.) In these ageist times
week after the Russians had invaded Afghanistan. Our Pass in 1980, I was chuffed when management gave the green light
press group was given lunch at the officers’ mess of the a week after to my proposal. “It’s the greatest comeback since
Khyber Rifles, and I was too overwhelmed to reveal that Lazarus!” I told my wife and my 15-year-old son Rafe.
as a boy my favourite reading was a sub-Kiplingesque
the Russians “Who does he play for?” Rafe asked. O
novel called King of the Khyber Rifles. Later, we stood on a had invaded
rocky outcrop while a Khyber Rifles officer pointed out Afghanistan John Simpson is the BBC’s world affairs editor
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 15
2021+37 015 Diary.indd 15 14/09/2021 20:37:23I
n September 2016, Apple’s chief executive
Tim Cook described Margrethe Vestager’s efforts
Encounter to make his company pay more tax as “political
crap”. Three years later, Donald Trump called
the EU competition commissioner the “tax lady” who
“hates the US”.
In the past year, however, Washington and Brussels
have become more closely aligned on the issue of the
American tech giants. Shortly before Trump left office,
the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took legal
action against Facebook for “illegally” buying up its
“Europe was so far ahead rivals. Joe Biden has continued the quest to reform the
sector, appointing Lina Khan as chair of the FTC. The
of the curve on privacy” 32-year-old legal scholar had become one of the most
outspoken critics of the tech industry before she
Margrethe Vestager, joined the regulator in June.
Vestager, 53, spoke with Khan after her
EU commissioner, on her appointment. Did she give any advice to her American
counterpart? “What we can do, at best, is to inspire
JESSE DITTMAR /REDUX/EYEVINE
battle with Big Tech one another by telling the story of what you’re doing,”
Vestager told me by video call from the EU
Commission’s Brussels headquarters.
By Oscar Williams During her seven-year stint as Europe’s most
powerful regulator, Vestager, the former Danish
deputy prime minister, has imposed multi-billion
pound fines and tax orders on some of the world’s
most powerful companies, including Google and
16 The New Statesman | 17-23 September 2021
2021+37 016 Encounter.indd 16 14/09/2021 20:39:19Apple. But she has also learned that “competition entrench their market power. One legal expert told me
Vestager has
law enforcement is not enough”. More than five years earlier this year that there “may not be a perfect
after it began, the legal battle over Apple’s tax imposed equilibrium where you have as much privacy as you
payments hasn’t concluded. And last year, a study multi-billion would like and as much competition as you would like”.
called into question the effectiveness of the pound fines Vestager concedes that “perfection, no matter how
Commission’s efforts to make Google resolve you combine it, is out of reach, no matter what you’re
competition concerns: still less than 1 per cent of the
on some of thinking about”. She believes that giving consumers
traffic to its shopping search engine was being the world’s control over who accesses their data is essential,
directed to rival sites. most powerful but a key part of her work is also introducing new
To complement enforcement actions, Vestager companies legislation to prevent the digital gatekeepers from
believes competition regulation needs updating, abusing their powers.
and not just in the EU. She is encouraged that in When Ursula von der Leyen was appointed
the US “they are bringing cases to their courts, but European Commission president in 2019, she made
they also have a very vibrant discussion in Congress Europe’s technological sovereignty a key focus of her
about new regulation”. She plans to meet Khan term. She promoted Vestager, expanding her role to
face-to-face later this year and sees opportunities “executive vice-president for a Europe fit for the digital
for closer collaboration with allies across the Atlantic. age”. Vestager had already been accused by critics such
“We have strengthened the competition dialogue that as Cook and Trump of pursuing a political agenda.
we’ve been having for a very long time with our US The new dual remit, focused on making Europe less
colleagues, to lift that to a higher and maybe more dependent on foreign suppliers while holding primarily
strategic level.” American companies to account, risked legitimising
The daughter of two Lutheran ministers, Vestager their claims.
was born and raised in western Denmark. “Ours was “That was my first concern, obviously, even daring
never a religious religious home,” she told the New to ask for the work that I do now,” she said. “That, of
Statesman in 2018, “because my parents thought of course, would have to be solved. The European Union
religion as something you do: it’s the way you is built on the rule of law and it cannot be that there is
engage in the local community. That has meant a lot to any suspicion that political priorities are allowed to
me.” She studied economics at the University of interfere in our law enforcement practices.” Vestager
Copenhagen before beginning her political career said the Commission “is really strict when it comes to
aged 21. In 2011, she became Denmark’s deputy prime the checks and balances… There is a strong focus on
minister, serving under Social Democrat Helle the casework, making sure that our criteria is whether
Thorning-Schmidt, who also now seeks to hold tech or not our cases will hold up in court.”
executives to account as co-chair of Facebook’s Reflecting on her work so far, Margrethe Vestager
Oversight Board. said she is “acutely aware that competition law
Vestager joined the European Commission in 2014. enforcement, as we have done it, is not in itself
“I remember when I had my first Google case, I was in sufficient, which is why we now have the Digital
the US walking up and down the hill with my case Markets Act”. But she is not convinced that pursuing
under my arm, and they were like, ‘Who is this woman legal battles to break up the tech giants is a viable
and what is it that she’s doing?’” The consensus on solution. “What we’re trying to do is to get the
competition in the tech sector shifted dramatically necessary speed to keep the market open and
over the subsequent years. Vestager said that contestable, and not to be hung up in court for
policymakers have concluded that “technological maybe a small decade, before any results could
development is as unavoidable as climate change” and be achieved.” O
that they need to decide what role they would like to
play. “Do you just want to let it go and let some of the
most important decisions be taken in closed
boardrooms? Or would you want to make sure that
you can take them in an open, transparent manner in
our democracies?”
Does she feel she can claim some credit for
elevating the issue internationally? “That Europe was
so far ahead of the curve, when it comes to privacy, I
think was part of putting the light on what was taking
place,” she said. “But it is the actions of the companies
themselves that have pushed this forward, because all
of a sudden people saw their power, with valuations
bigger than many, many countries, and influence, not
only in market developments, but also in how our
democracies work.”
Nevertheless, critics of the EU’s sweeping GDPR
BERNIE
privacy laws that came into effect in 2018 argue that the
rules have been co-opted by the tech giants to “What are you doing?”
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 17
2021+37 016 Encounter.indd 17 14/09/2021 20:39:2318 The New Statesman | 17-23 September 2021 2021+37 018 In the Picture.indd 18 14/09/2021 20:41:09
In the picture
The melting Sermeq Kujalleq glacier
in Greenland, photographed on
11 September, is one of the fastest-
moving glaciers in the world. Located
250 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle,
near the city of Ilulissat, it is part of the
ice sheet that covers around 80 per cent
of the country.
Photograph by Hannibal
Hanschke / Reuters
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 19
2021+37 018 In the Picture.indd 19 14/09/2021 20:41:10Decarbonise,
revitalise
To achieve net zero, the world needs negative
emissions. Bioenergy with carbon capture and
storage (BECCS) is ready to deliver them.
Back BECCS at Drax today to:
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drax.com/backBECCS
20-00_ads.indd 6 07/09/2021 10:43:49For decades, voters in these regions hated
TIM
Thatcher’s party because of what her
governments did to their communities.
Prior to the 2015 election, when the NHS
and the economy regularly topped voters’
ROSS
lists of concerns, Thatcher’s legacy was still
poisonous in much of northern England.
But after these areas voted to leave the EU
in 2016, the picture appeared to change.
When YouGov asked which prime minister
of the past 30 years people would choose
to lead Brexit negotiations in 2019,
Thatcher won easily, including with 42 per
cent support among respondents in the
north (and 47 per cent in the Midlands and
Wales). Then Labour's red wall crumbled.
Westminster Time, Brexit and the arrival of another
larger-than-life Tory who is able to
Sajid Javid holds Boris Johnson’s fate, transcend party tribes have softened
attitudes towards Thatcher, both in former
and the torch of Thatcherism, in his hands Labour heartlands in England and among
free marketeers. Conservatives also blame
Jeremy Corbyn’s populist, big-state
W
hen he stood against Boris are whether Javid has what it takes to manifesto in 2017 for dragging voters – and
Johnson for the Conservative deliver his huge task, or whether he really the Prime Minister – to the left. The
leadership in 2019, Sajid Javid believes in the policy at all. On the face of cabinet’s Thatcherites are still trying to
talked up his credentials as a it, there are few who can match the Health work out how to respond.
Thatcherite free marketeer who had Secretary for competence. He is now For now, Javid has chosen to keep faith
fought his way to the top. As the son of heading up his sixth Whitehall department with Thatcher’s pragmatism rather than
Pakistani immigrants, he has battled without major mishap and has held two of her pugnacity. Even tempered, with an
prejudice throughout his life because some the four great offices of state: chancellor instinct for deal-making, he will want to
people at his school, in the City and in the and home secretary. show he’s succeeded as Health Secretary,
Conservative Party decided his face didn’t Yet even among Javid’s own supporters despite having little natural affection for
fit. “When I got racially abused by the there are persistent whispers about his the challenge, according to one who knows
toughest guy in school, well, rightly or record, which, for all his experience, him well. “At his heart he is a City boy – he
wrongly, I punched him,” he recalled at his remains unproven. He has moved roles so believes that free markets and meritocracy
campaign launch. frequently – at a rate of almost one new are the best way for people to advance,” I
Johnson later discovered first-hand cabinet job per year since 2014 – that he was told. “In a way, health is almost the
that Javid was prepared to stand up for hasn’t spent long enough in any ministry to worst possible job for him because it is the
himself, whatever the cost. In February leave a legacy on which to be judged. An one part of government where you just
2020, Javid derailed Johnson’s first major arm’s-length and powerful NHS can’t apply that. You would be burned at
reshuffle when he resigned as chancellor, bureaucracy will not be easy to manage. the stake for suggesting there could be
after Dominic Cummings demanded that other ways to do healthcare better.”
P
he fire all his Treasury aides. “They wanted erhaps the greatest obstacle to But the struggle isn’t over. The
his balls in a jar,” said one Javid ally. “He is Javid’s success is the question over Thatcherites are mobilising. Javid and the
rather attached to his balls.” his belief in Johnson’s higher-tax, free market club in the cabinet remain
Now Javid is back in the cabinet as bigger-state project. In a cabinet of quietly committed to their cause, which
Health Secretary, he’s the one holding many Thatcherites – including Kwasi Johnson will ponder as he plots another
Johnson’s fate in his hands. He must Kwarteng, Liz Truss, Dominic Raab and reshuffle. Some 60 Tory MPs, including
deliver on the Prime Minister’s promise to Priti Patel – Javid is arguably the most several senior ministers, are launching a
fix the backlog of 5.5 million postponed ardent. He regularly studies the courtroom new Free Market Forum to champion
NHS procedures in England, and overhaul scene from Ayn Rand’s hymn to their brand of economics. The Telegraph
elderly care, or risk voters concluding that individualism, The Fountainhead, and has a (which Johnson allegedly refers to as his
the manifesto-busting 1.25 per cent portrait of Margaret Thatcher hanging in “real boss”) is angry about the tax rise,
National Insurance rise was an unjustified his office. “It’s just a piece of tat,” said one claiming the government is no longer
and unforgivable betrayal. person who has seen too much of the even conservative.
While it might seem reckless for picture. “I think he bought it at some Tory Some on both the left and the right are
Johnson to outsource his own destiny to fundraising auction.” already calling the Health and Social Care
a former rival, the two men trust each Javid’s task exposes the core of the Levy Johnson’s poll tax because it hurts
other and maintained good relations while Tory party’s identity crisis. That an arch poorer workers in the north and Midlands
MARTA SIGNORI
Javid was on the back benches. They also Thatcherite is now overseeing the NHS is a most of all. If Javid stumbles, the price for
have a helpful mutual friend in the Prime vital test of the durability of Johnson’s the Prime Minister may be high. There will
Minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson. project to redefine the Tories and cement be no shortage of Thatcherites ready to
The biggest risks for the government their appeal in the north and the Midlands. offer an alternative medicine. O
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 21
2021+37 021 Tim Ross.indd 21 14/09/2021 20:14:19T
here are moments when history
stands still, and moments when its
Cover Story wheels start turning. The night of 9
November 1989 was one of the lat-
ter. At 8pm Günter Schabowski, a spokesman
for the struggling, protest-beset East Ger-
man regime, fumbled an answer in a press
conference and implied that the borders to
the West would open “with immediate effect”.
East Berliners rushed to the checkpoints.
One, a 35-year-old quantum physicist and a
creature of habit, initially resisted and kept
her regular Thursday evening sauna appoint-
ment. But afterwards Angela Merkel skipped
her post-sauna beer and joined the crowds
pouring across the now-open crossing on
the Bornholmer Bridge. “I met a few people,
and at some point, we were all sitting in the
apartment of a happy West German family,”
she later recalled of that “fateful day”. The
young Merkel took it all in, then hurried
home. The next day would be an early start.
One month later Merkel joined the new
The Fateful party Democratic Awakening, which merged
with the centre-right Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) in August 1990. In December
that year she ran for and won the Bundestag
Chancellor seat for a north-eastern coastal constituency
(which she would represent for the next 31
years). Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who patron-
isingly referred to her as “mein Mädchen” (“my
What the end of
girl”), made her minister for women and youth
and then minister for the environment. When
election defeat in 1998 and a party funding
scandal consumed Kohl and his crown prince,
Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel manoeuvred to
the Merkel era become first the CDU’s general secretary in
1998, its leader in 2000 and German chancel-
lor in 2005.
Over the subsequent 16 years, and her four
means for Europe
terms of office, Merkel has guided Germany
to greater power and prosperity. She has
steered it and Europe through crisis after
crisis. In the process she has become, to many
and the world
around the world, the embodiment of grown-
up, pragmatic leadership. Now her long po-
litical story, the one that began on that fate-
ful night in November 1989, is ending. Merkel
is not seeking a fifth term at the German
federal election on 26 September and will
step down as chancellor once a new govern-
ment has been formed. She will leave office
not only as one of the most recognisable
global politicians but also the most respect-
ed: international polling by YouGov last
month gave her the most positive ratings of
any world leader. She is the pre-eminent Eu-
ropean leader of the post-1989 era.
Yet Merkel is also fiendishly hard to define.
She is a Protestant woman scientist from the
former East Germany in a political family (the
CDU and its Bavarian ally the Christian Social
By Jeremy Cliffe Union or CSU) dominated by male Catholic
lawyers from West Germany. She has been
22 The New Statesman | 17-23 September 2021
2021+37 022 Merkel.indd 22 14/09/2021 19:56:28JUSTIN METZ
17-23 September 2021 | The New Statesman 23
2021+37 022 Merkel.indd 23 14/09/2021 19:56:51world collapsed into the carnage of the First East Germany’s political system that she
World War. The 60th birthday lecture was grounds her faith in liberal democracy. As a
Cover Story delivered by Jürgen Osterhammel, author of young woman she read the Austrian-British
The Transformation of the World (2009), a his- philosopher Karl Popper and likes to use his
tory of that first age of globalisation and the line: “The future is wide open. It is dependent
uncontrollable, disruptive effects it un- on us – all of us.” Another anti-deterministic
leashed. In 2018 she urged her ministers to phrase that Merkel quotes is from a poem by
read The Sleepwalkers (2012), Christopher Hermann Hesse: “A magic dwells in each
hailed as a progressive icon and defender Clark’s account of what Merkel herself called beginning.”
of liberal democracy, yet is also a paragon of “the violent juggernaut of 1914”. “I am afraid So Merkel is an anti-determinist with a
small-c conservatism and has been frustrat- that open societies in the post-Cold War deterministic world-view. The key to her style
ingly reluctant to stand up to autocracy. She world are more in danger than we realise,” and instincts as leader lies in how this appar-
is a global power broker in an age of swag- she once said. ent tension is resolved. For Merkelism means
gering strongmen, yet is unflashy in her per- All of which might appear fatalistic. There humility towards the forces of history: aware
sonality and habits; she lives in a modest flat is a streak of determinism both in her accounts of their presence and might, humbled by the
and can be seen doing her own grocery shop- of the “juggernauts” of history, and in her own same, but flexible and vigilant for opportuni-
ping in a central Berlin supermarket. She has background. The essayist Georg Diez tells me ties to harness those forces, and sober about
called multiculturalism “a grand delusion” that Merkel grew up in three systems that deal the patience needed to shape them.
yet is perhaps best known for admitting one in unyielding forces: religion (as the devout In her comments about the Thirty Years’
million mostly Middle Eastern migrants at daughter of a Lutheran pastor), science (as a War she has also stressed the efforts taken to
the peak of the migration crisis in 2015. She quantum physicist) and historical materialism forge the 1648 Peace of Westphalia that end-
is profoundly interested in history yet travels (as one who spent her first 35 years under an ed it: “It took years to find peace”. And it is
light, ideologically and strategically, in her East German political system that promoted why she venerates the examples of the post-
own style of leadership. a Marxist telling of history). “They all involve war founders of the European project: Konrad
How to explain this sphinx-like leader as rules beyond the scope of human agency,” Adenauer, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman;
her era draws to a close? And how will his- he ruminates. why she talks about applying the lessons of
tory view her legacy? Yet in negotiating those rules, Merkel has history; why she ran for her fourth and final
always identified a role for human agency. “I term in 2017 rather than stepping down (per-
T
o understand Merkel’s place in his- find it very liberating that as a Christian… suaded to do so by the election of Donald
tory one must start with her view of one knows that we are called on to shape the Trump and the perceived need for someone
it. Her interest in the subject is more world in responsibility for others,” she to hold the system together). There is in this
than casual. The chancellor devours explained: “This is the framework for my life.” humble-not-fatalistic posture, the historian
history books, counts historians among her She sees human choices and efforts as central Timothy Garton Ash told me, something of
confidants and for her 60th birthday party to science too: “The beauty of science is this: Bismarck’s dictum: “The statesman’s task is
in 2014 even had one give an hour-long lecture. no sooner has one found the key to the to hear God’s footsteps marching through
Her speeches are peppered with references universe than new questions begin to emerge history, and to try and catch on to his coat-
to historical examples and lessons. “History all over again.” And it is in her rejection of tails as he marches past.”
offers orientation,” she said in one address in
2019: “With a consciousness of history we can
recognise and make sense of current develop-
ments in Germany, Europe and the world.” A
common thread runs through Merkel’s vision
of it: that chaotic historical forces are always
present, just below the surface of events, and
that all forms of human and societal order
are fragile and transient – like the East
German regime whose own end she saw at
close quarters.
Stefan Kornelius, one of her biographers,
writes of a press conference in 2012 in which
the Bulgarian prime minister was “over-
whelmed by what his host had been telling
him, in vivid terms, about the nature of the
[euro zone] crisis, and told the world: ‘Frau
Merkel quite rightly pointed out that the
SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG PHOTO
Maya and many other civilisations have disap-
peared from the face of the earth.’” In a speech
to CDU MPs in 2018, she compared the darken-
ing global horizon to the period preceding
the Thirty Years’ War (which ravaged what is
today Germany) and warned of the compla-
cency that long years of peace can bring.
Merkel is also fascinated by the 19th cen-
tury and how a seemingly sophisticated Captain’s table: Angela Merkel visits fishermen while campaigning for the CDU, 1990
24 The New Statesman | 17-23 September 2021
2021+37 022 Merkel.indd 24 14/09/2021 19:56:55You can also read
