Wrong Way's Loser and Winner of the Year Awards

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Yes, it's that moment you've all been waiting for, the Wrong Way Corrigan Loser and Winner of the Year Awards 2020. We've had plenty of contenders for the former, the latter has been much more difficult to choose. Basically, we've had a dearth of outstanding candidates.

Our Loser of the Year brought about our Winner of the Year. (Photo from Facebook.)

Amazon high

It has, of course, been a year that most people will probably want to erase from memory. Not everybody, though. There's Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for example. He's had a bumper 12 months. Ditto for those holding the purse strings at Facebook, Netflix and Zoom.

Also, a fair few folk in the First World's comfortable classes — their public mutterings of enduring an annus horribilis aside — have seen their lot actually improve, from a financial perspective in any case.

OK, it's not all about money. I've certainly had to keep on telling myself that this last while in any case. Alas, it doesn't tend to wash with many Colombian women. 'Instead of that fancy restaurant, how about a litrazo of Poker in the barrio tienda? No? Really?!' They'll come round, they will.

Anyway, let's get to the awards, starting with our Loser of the Year.

Xi's the man

The obvious choice for many here is outgoing US President Donald J. Trump. He certainly, um, trumps the lot for sore loser of the year. Indeed, he didn't actually lose the presidential election so he and many of his supporters tell us. 

Whatever the case, he won't be residing at the White House after 20 January, we can be pretty sure of that. Thus, he is a loser, but it's not enough for him to take our gong.

No, the Wrong Way Corrigan Loser of the Year Award is going east, to China to be precise. As the head of a country that initially buried its head in the sand when news emerged of a novel, easily transmitted and somewhat lethal virus at large, Xi Jinping is our top failure.

Not only that, but once coronavirus was let out of the bag (or is that lab? Or wet market?) and reached the four corners of the globe, Xi did what the Chinese Communist Party does best at home: suppression. 

Thus, contagion was curtailed in China while it flourished outside, aided and abetted by a dithering World Health Organisation kowtowing to Beijing.

'Our Loser of the Year and other world leaders did much to ensure Alan scooped the top prize, but credit where credit is due.'

This dithering behaviour proved to be as contagious as coronavirus itself, as governments across the world followed suit. Cue pandemic pandemonium and cures more damaging to society as a whole than covid-19, the infection coronavirus can bring about.

For all that, together with China's backfiring wolf-warrior diplomacy which is only serving to deepen mistrust abroad about the CCP's intentions, Xi Jinping is a worthy Loser of the Year.

Crowning glory

And now for the big one, our Winner of the Year. Many have waxed lyrical about the darling of world leaders, New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern. She's done well in some areas for sure, but in terms of being a global champion, that's stretching things.

There can really be only one winner. Some will accuse me of picking this individual simply because he appeared on my podcast.

For sure, I was delighted to have him on as a guest, but it's disingenuous to say this played a part in my decision. I'm far more balanced than that.

So, our Winner of the Year 2020 is — no, not Niall Ferguson — it's "Alan", aka coronavirus.

For sure, our Loser of the Year and other world leaders did much to ensure Alan scooped this accolade, but credit where credit is due. It may have been an open goal of sorts, but he still had to tuck it away. And that he did with gusto.

He has, quite literally, touched the hearts and minds of millions of people across the planet. At the risk of being facetious, his modus operandi hasn't been to everyone's liking and there are many who certainly wouldn't put him in the winner's enclosure.

Nonetheless, in terms of world dominance in 2020, be that good, bad or indifferent, no one else comes close.

What's more, his emergence may have just given humanity a timely heads-up to get our act together before something far more deadly comes along.

In a divided world, one doesn't hold out much hope that we'll take great heed of this warning.

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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz". 

Niall Ferguson: 'Colombia didn't have the capacity to do East Asia's smart coronavirus policies'

Renowned historian and author Niall Ferguson believes Colombia had little option but to impose what he refers to as the 'pretty blunt instrument' of a lockdown for dealing with coronavirus.

Professor Niall Ferguson chats to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast.

Speaking to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast (recorded on 19 June) Professor Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, revealed Colombian government officials contacted him for advice on dealing with the pandemic.

'It became clear (in conversation with government officials) that Colombia didn't really have the capacity to do the smart policies of some East Asian countries in tackling coronavirus and therefore had to rely on cruder policies,' he said.

While he highlighted the relatively good performance of the authorities here in dealing with the health crisis in contrast to other South American countries such as Brazil, Chile and Ecuador, he warned that the data suggest Colombia will be in a 'worse position four weeks from now.'

'It won't be the first time a pandemic has had a very severe impact on South America,' he explained. 'The big ones of 1918/19 and 1957/58 hit Latin America very hard indeed and there's a sense this history is repeating itself. The explanation for this lies in the fact that the region has big cities with dense populations and rather poor public health infrastructure with wide inequalities.'

'Early detection, early action. If that had happened in Colombia in January people wouldn't now be locked in their homes and the economy wouldn't be in the tank.'

Ferguson, author of a number of influential books including The Square and the Tower, Civilization: The West and the Rest and Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, did admit he doesn't know 'what good option there is for Colombia in tackling coronavirus.'

He did, however, offer this advice for the next pandemic which 'will come and could be much worse':

'There's no real reason why Colombia should not be able to do testing and contact tracing if it does it early enough. Most people have mobile phones and a significant amount have smartphones ... Early detection, early action, that way you avoid lockdowns. If that had happened in Colombia in January people wouldn't now be locked in their homes and the economy wouldn't be in the tank.'

'In Venezuela, you have a regime that is as destructive as any that we've seen in the world in the last 50 years ... It is a criminal racket ... Under those circumstances, it seems kind of a no-brainer to do something to tip the scales in favour of the democratic opposition.'

As regards the temptation for Colombia's electorate to seek comfort in extreme politics in the years to come as it deals with the coronavirus fallout, he said 'the key is to make sure that the range of political options is not too wide. As soon as you have the populism of the left or the populism of the right offering their quick fixes you risk destroying either the economy, which is what the left specialises in, or destroying the free, open society which is what the far-right tends to do.'

Speaking in relation to the possibility of direct US military intervention in Venezuela, the Scottish-born American citizen called the Maduro administration 'a criminal racket' and, as such, 'it seems kind of a no-brainer to do something to tip the scales in favour of the democratic opposition.'

In a wide-ranging interview, Ferguson also talked about the 'dithering response' of the US and the UK to coronavirus, the problems with and unintended consequences of the Black Lives Matter movement, today's 'cancel culture' and counterfactual history in relation to Colombia and colonisation.

Listen to the Wrong Way's Colombia Cast interview with Niall Ferguson in full here, on Spotify or at Apple Podcasts. (Also on YouTube at https://youtu.be/8r06Lv6sKC8?si=70up0zGlUSoB0zyF.)
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".