Convenience Big Store: Bezos and Branson are the new Vikings

26 July, 2021

In the headlines

Britain's Covid cases are finally falling. Yesterday there were 29,173 recorded positive cases – the first time the number has dropped below 30,000 in a fortnight. Among possible explanations are the end of the Euros, which means fewer people are meeting up in pubs and at home, the hot weather, and children being at home for the school holidays. Severe thunderstorms in London have flooded roads, Tube stations and hospitals. And Britain won three Olympic golds this morning. Swimmer Adam Peaty, divers Tom Daley and Matty Lee, and mountain biker Tom Pidcock took the medals in the space of five hours.

Comment of the day

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Bezos and Branson are the new Vikings

People scoff at Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk – but they're our modern-day adventurers, says historian Arthur Herman in The Wall Street Journal. In fact, "I see strong parallels between today's billionaire space race and the Viking raiders". Like the trips to space by Bezos, Branson and Musk, Viking raids were "essentially private-sector enterprises". Individual chieftains travelled with a tiny crew: "the first recorded successful attack on the English coastline, at Portland in 789, consisted of only three longships". People assume these Viking raids were swashbuckling adventures – in reality, they were transforming civilisation. From 790 until 1000, Viking adventurers descended on Europe and Russia. They established trade routes to Normandy, the Mediterranean, Baghdad, Iceland, Greenland, the British Isles and North America. "The wealth that circulated through those routes helped to lift Europe out of the Dark Ages and laid the foundations for the great seaborne Spanish, English and Dutch empires."

The same goes for our space-racing billionaires. Bezos, Branson and Musk aren't just rich thrill-seekers. They see space "as a new source of wealth and opportunity for the world". If government programmes aren't up to scratch, let billionaires make tracks instead. "They breathe the Viking spirit of entrepreneurship on the edge of the unknown – a spirit that, a millennium after the last longships were laid to rest, still fascinates and inspires."

Read the full article here (paywall).

A brave decision, but is it the right one?

Freedom Day is Boris Johnson's Falklands, says Matthew Parris in The Times. Not because it's a war, but because it's a huge, career-defining gamble. Margaret Thatcher wasn't following "military science" when she sent warships to the South Atlantic. If we'd lost to Argentina, "she'd have been finished". And, just as her MPs "watched shakily for every report of casualties", Johnson will have his eyes trained on the graphs representing new Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

The punt he's made is a characteristic one. Our PM believes in freedom, "however scattily defined", as shown by his repeated reluctance to lock down, or to sack Dominic Cummings and Matt Hancock after their respective scandals. He proceeded with Freedom Day "despite soaring infections and rising hospitalisations". I think it's the right decision – and a brave one. But if it goes wrong and the NHS ends up "staring again at disaster", scientists, journalists and Tory backbenchers will turn on the PM. Johnson is well aware of the risk – as a classicist, he knows all about the dangers of tempting fate. "He gambles like a god, then trembles like one cursed by the gods."

Read the full article here (paywall).

Tomorrow's world

Concorde is set for a comeback, says Graeme Paton in The Times. Several companies are racing to make the next supersonic aircraft, and Spike Aerospace's S-512 could be the winner. Predicted to enter commercial service in 2028, the $120m plane will travel at 1,200mph, whizzing passengers from New York to London in three hours. From an environmental stance, the news is less good, says aviation writer David Learmount. The planes will guzzle fuel and tickets will cost a fortune. "The world really won't take kindly to the hyper-rich flying around the world in climate-destroying capsules."

Noted

This summer it's all about WFV, says Duncan Craig in The Sunday Times. That's "working from villa". Swarms of Brits are renting foreign villas for weeks at a time so they can work abroad. Villa rental service The Thinking Traveller has seen a 20% increase in holiday lengths since 2019, and the Italian rental company Bellini Travel says a string of its UK clients have booked villas for all of August. Given the complicated Covid restrictions, it makes sense, says Bellini's founder, Emily FitzRoy. "Once you've gone to the trouble of getting to Italy or wherever, you might as well stay put."

Snapshot

Inside politics

When I turned six I wanted a princess party, says Boris Johnson's daughter Lara Lettice Johnson-Wheeler in her blog I'm Not A Party Girl. Instead the PM and his ex-wife Marina Wheeler threw her a Henry VIII-themed bash. "My parents got the neighbour's nanny to dress up as an executioner," says Johnson-Wheeler, 28. "Most of the children were horrified, particularly when Anne Boleyn lost her head (a balloon and ketchup were involved)." For the birthday girl, it was just another day in the life as Boris's child. "To be honest, I was kind of used to it."

Snapshot answer

It's Adam Peaty, training in his garden near Loughborough. The Olympic swimmer, who won a gold medal for the 100 metres breaststroke this morning, has a gruelling training routine. He swims 35-40 hours a week, eats 8,000 calories a day and unwinds with regular ice baths. In lockdown, Peaty had no access to a pool, so British Swimming installed a Jacuzzi in his garden. It produces a powerful current, which he has to swim against.