First yr
Edition Gudftian
Monday briefing: What does Lula’s
victory mean for the future of Brazil?
In today’s newsletter: Celebrations erupted in Brazil last night after Lula’s
triumph over far-right incumbent Bolsonaro. What could the next four
years look like - and will Bolsonaro concede defeat peacefully?
* Signup here for our daily newsletter, First Edition
Brazilian President-olect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blows a kiss to his supporters during victory
celebrations, Photograph: Ettore Chiereguini/EPA
Nimo Omer
Good morning.
After an election period marred by disinformation and threats of violence,
Brazil’s leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - known as Lula -
narrowly defeated far right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by two percentage
points in an astonishing political comeback. Ina parallel universe, Lula’s
once unthinkable, political revival - from the top of Brazilian politics, to
prison and back to the presidency - would be the story of the hour.
Instead all eyes are elsewhere.Supporters of Lula flooded the streets, chanting his name and setting off
fireworks in a display of euphoric relief. Bolsonaro’s supporters stood,
teary eyed and indignant: in the capital, Brasilia, one man with a
loudspeaker said to a crowd: “We are with you, President Bolsonaro. Lula
thief, you belong in prison!”
By choosing Lula, Brazil is abandoning Bolsonaro’s far-right vision for the
country, which has been characterised over the past three years by attacks
on democratic institutions, the media, the left and the destruction of the
Amazon rainforest. Instead, the Brazilian electorate chose Lula and a
platform that centred social justice, environmental protection, defending
democracy and reunifying the country.
This, however, is not the end of the story. Bolsonaro has said on a number
of occasions that he may not accept the result of the election, while Lula
is tasked with rebuilding a country where poverty, acute hunger and
inflation are all on the rise, as well as repairing Brazil’s international
standing. I spoke to the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom
Phillips about what this election means for the future of the country.
That'’s right after the headlines:
Five big stories
1. Police | Met police chief, Sir Mark Rowley, has said that the gang
violence matrix, a controversial Metropolitan police list of alleged
gang members that mainly targeted black men, needs to be
“radically reformed”. Amnesty International branded the list part of
a “racialised war” on gangs. Rowley has already removed more than
1,000 young men from the list.
2. South Korea | President Yoon Suk-yeo has declared a state of national
mourning and ordered an investigation after a fatal crowd crush
during Halloween celebrations. More than 150 people were killed
after people surged through a narrow alleyway ina busy area of
Seoul.
3. Cop27 | Rishi Sunak’s decision not to attend UN climate talks in
Egypt this week has prompted an outpouring of anger from
countries around the world. “It seems as if they are washing their
hands of leadership,’ said Carlos Fuller, Belize’s ambassador to the
UN.
4.NHS | The NHS has not received any of the funding from Thérése
Coffey’s £500m emergency fund. The money was supposed to help
get thousands of medically fit patients out of hospital into their ownhome ora care home to prevent the NHS from becoming
overwhelmed in the winter.
5. National security | UK government ministers risk creating “wild
west” conditions in matters of national security through the
increased use of personal email and phones to conduct confidential
business, intelligence experts and former officials have warned.
In depth: A comeback for the ages
‘Supporters of Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrate his victory in Séo Paulo,
Photograph: Daniel Munoz/VIEW press.
Brazil is the latest Latin American country to elect a leftwing president,
joining Chile, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Honduras and Argentina who have
all favoured progressive parties over the political right. Leaders from
around the world were quick to congratulate Lula on his victory, showing
global solidarity and support following Bolsonaro’s past claims that the
election could be rigged. US President Joe Biden was clear and
unwavering in his statement, describing the election as “free, fair, and
credible”.
Now the election and campaigning is done, what can we expect from a
Lula presidency?
Democracy
Bolsonaro has spent the last four years undermining democratic
institutions in Brazil - “he is a pro-torture, pro-dictatorship, former Army
captain who has openly celebrated Brazil’s dictatorship and expressed
admiration for South American dictators like Augusto Pinochet,” saysTom. He has cast doubt on electronic voting, and made it near impossible
to tackle disinformation by limiting the power of tech companies to
moderate their sites in the country. Bolsonaro has also been known to
lash out the Brazilian Supreme Court and Supreme Electoral Tribunal
because of the many investigations levelled at him and his sons, and has
also been accused of filling the prosecutor’s office and the police with
allies and loyalists
Brazil isa relatively young democracy, emerging from a brutal military
dictatorship in 1985. In comparison to most similar democracies, the
country has fewer and weaker checks and balances to stop it from
returning to those dark days. “I think that the biggest positive
consequence of this result will be that Brazil will return within a few
months to some kind of democratic normalcy,” says Tom.
Environment
Four more years of Bolsonaro would have had devastating environmental
consequences, not just for Brazil but for the whole world. Two billion
trees have been burned or cut down during his presidency - an area the
size of greater London was lost in the first six months of 2022 alone. His
policies on deforestation and illegal logging have turned the Amazon
rainforest into a net emitter.
“Lula has said that he will immediately start cracking down down on
illegal mining and logging, and he will try to revive the Amazon Fund,
which is this big international fund by which governments like Norway
and Germany contribute to conservation efforts here,” Tom says. These
pledges, alongside Lula’s previous record of radically reducing
deforestation, indicate that massive swathes of the Amazon will be saved
and protected. Analysis conducted for Carbon Brief indicates that Lula’s
victory could cut Amazon deforestation by 89% over the next decade.
These policies could have life-saving consequences for journalists,
environmental activists, and indigenous groups, Tom says: “Hopefully
this will stop the many invasions of indigenous territories by gold miners
and other gangs, like the ones who were seemingly responsible for the
murder ofa friend and colleague, Dom Phillips.”
‘The economy
Lula has promised to bring back the economic prosperity that was seen
under his presidency between 2003 and 2010, when tens of millions of
Brazilians were brought into the middle class. According to a World Bankreport, the middle class in Brazil grew by 50% between 2003 and 2009.
Replicating this success will not be easy in a global economy that is
heading towards recession, however.
While Lula’s pledges of a more progressive tax regime, ending the
spending cap on public expenditure, an increase in the minimum wage
and boosting social welfare will help alleviate income inequality, there
has been very little detail or costing. The commodities that allowed Lula
to implement many policies like these during his previous tenure is long
ove, and while it’s clear that while his policies may be popular, Lula faces
many obstacles in implementing them.
Civil rights
Tom sent me a voice note following Lula’s victory speech - you can hear
that the celebrations are in full swing, with rapturous cheering in the
background. “[Lula] looked extremely tired and extremely emotional?”
Tom says, “The main message of his speech was reunifying the country,
he said he’s going to govern the 250 million Brazilians in the country, not
just the ones that voted for him. He said he’s going to wage a relentless
fight against racism and discrimination.” Lula is viewed as a champion of
Brazil’s indigenous population and has called homophobia a “perverse
disease”. However, in a public letter to Brazilian Evangelicals, Lula said
that he was personally opposed to abortion and that he would leave that
issue with congress.
Will there be a coup?
As of yet, there has been silence from Bolsonaro and his team. The
country and the world is nervously looking to see if he makes good on his
threats of refusing to give up power, after months of baselessly alleging
that Brazil’s electronic voting system is plagued by fraud and claiming
that there is a conspiracy between the courts and media against his far-
right movement. It’s a message that has clearly taken hold. “I’ve talked to
supporters of his over the last few weeks who said that they are
absolutely convinced that he did win the first round, which he actually
lost by 6 million votes,” says Tom.
It’s unlikely that Bolsonaro will quietly slink off into the night. “I suspect
that Bolsonaro is going to remain a big figure in far-right politics for many
years, he’s got a movement, he’s got a name, he’s got two prominent
politician sons in Congress. He’s probably not going anywhere,” Tom says.
Nevertheless, he will wake up tomorrow a significantly diminished figure,
whose destructive vision for the country has ultimately been rejected.Remembering Ian Jack
lan Jack, who has died at the age of 77. Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/The Guardian
Tan Jack, who has died at the age of 77, was one of the great British
journalists of his generation. “No journalist had a deeper sense of history
than Ian Jack,” his friend Donald Macintyre wrote on Saturday. “It’s hard
to think of anyone in our trade who was better read or had deeper
intellectual interests and passions.” You could start almost anywhere
among his remarkable body of work and feel certain of pleasure and
enlightenment - but here are six recommendations from his colleagues:
« Ian Jack brought to his writing a degree of craft - and graft - that
was, in its way, the equal of the master shipbuilders he so admired.
What is most apparent though, as in the shipyards themselves, is not
so much the skill on display as the atmosphere all around. His work
is infused with the elegiac. He was often described as nostalgic, but
it’s more like homesickness for the past, as if he was born just too
Jate and ached with that knowledge. This column on his father’s
bookcase is a fine example of his technique, moving - through the
accumulation of small details - from the particular and personal to a
vast social and historical sweep. We are fortunate to have inherited
Tan’s words. We shall miss his curious mind. Peter Ross, freelance
journalist and author
+ Pve never stopped thinking about this article, written by Ian in 2016.
Itis a short masterpiece about national identity, and how the then-
recent vote for Brexit had changed how he felt about his Britishness
and his Scottishness. Its emotional power is heightened by a
touching and unexpected anecdote about his family’s relationshipwith a German prisoner of war he never met. Ian’s sense of bitter
betrayal at the end of the piece makes you shiver, with a sense of
dread. Katharine Viner, editor, the Guardian
Everyone who has read Ian Jack knows what a brilliant writer he
was, his gift for weaving together past and present. What is
sometimes overlooked is what a brilliant reporter and researcher he
was. In 2016, he wrote about Trident for the long read. Like
everything Ian wrote, the piece is a deft synthesis of history, memoir
and analysis. But in the course of writing it, Ian also seemed to have
quietly acquired a PhD-level knowledge of nuclear technology and
military theory. The piece exemplifies one of his key beliefs: that
“writing, if it can do nothing else, should at least tell the reader
something he didn’t know before.” David Wolf, editor, the Guardian
long read
Tan Jack and I shared a love of Arnold Bennett, the great early 20th-
century novelist and journalist of the Potteries. Rereading this
column, I realise it says as much about Ian as it does about Bennett:
both were restlessly curious, brilliant autodidacts, uprooted from
but always shaped by the working-class locale in which they’d
grown up. Ian loved Bennett’s story The Death of Simon Fuge. Take
his advice and read it. Charlotte Higgins, chief culture writer, the
Guardian
Ian Jack wrote for the London Review of Books on housing and ships,
Scotland and Brexit, model railways and newspaper men.
Sometimes his interests combined: just last month we published a
remarkable 17,000-word piece by Ian on the CalMac ferry fiasco, a
piece no one else could have written. One of my favourite of his
pieces came out in May 2019. The book under review was on the
subject of public land and its appropriation, but Ian started where he
often did, close to home, on a ‘hilly little peninsula that juts south
into the Firth of Forth’. Alice Spawls, co-editor, the London Review of
Books
Most journalists secretly feel they’re only good as their last story, so
Pm going to choose Jan’s final piece, a column for the Guardian
published on the Saturday before his death. He grew up in the old
newspaper world of hot metal and proper deadlines, acquiring the
skills that would make him such a paragon as a reporter and an
editor. His reflection on the BBC’s centenary contains many of the
elements that made him so distinctive: wisdom, historical
perspective, clarity of prose and a late-maturing gift for using his
own family background to add depth and colour toa story,something very few can manage. Richard Williams, former chief
sportswriter, the Guardian
What else we've been reading
* More and more artists are cancelling live dates because of
astronomical costs. Michael Hann asks whether touring will ever be
the same. Nimo
Will disruptive action help save the planet? Two activists - Just Stop
Oil protester Indigo Rumbelow and former Extinction Rebellion
spokesperson Rupert Read - argue for and against headline-grabbing
stunts respectively in this insightful head-to-head. Hannah J Davies,
deputy editor, newsletters,
What happens when advertising starts to swallow an entire city?
liver Wainwright takes us on a tour through a new West End
development that looks to be little more than a hotspot for luxury
commerce. Nimo
“Iwas trying to process this idea of irrevocable change, and what
that does to personal relationships, the damage it can do to people,
because it’s so isolating” Kathryn Bromwich’s interview with singer
Weyes Blood is full of deep meditations to match her richly ethereal
music. Hannah
The Netflix hit Sex Education won’t be back on our screens for a
while - so in the meantime why not read this brilliant interview with
the actor Connor Swindells by Tim Lewis. Nimo
Sport
Football| Marcus Rashford’s 100th Manchester United goal earned the
team a 1-0 win over West Ham. Meanwhile, Arsenal took back their top
spot in the Premier League after thrashing Nottingham Forest, 5-0.
Formula One | Max Verstappen won the Mexican Grand Prix with another
dominant performance for Red Bull at Autédromo Hermanos Rodriguez,
sealing his place in F1 history with anew win record for a single season.
Rugby | England insisted they have no plans to change their forward-
dominated gameplan after a 41-5 win against Australia set up a Women’s
Rugby World Cup semi-final against Canada. All seven of England’s tries
against the Wallaroos came from their hard-edged pack.
The front pagesures Msn es saat
Tatchell Brazilatthepolls o-.
‘T've made | t
PH
oa
angry’
Cr
Ministers accused of ‘wild west’
attitude to UK’s fain security
Pienewshockedasto
Emeseonerannet care
BBC local
radio under
threat from
huge cuts
Guardian front page 31 October 2022 Photograph: Guardian
The Guardian headlines “Ministers accused of ‘wild west’ attitude to UK’s
national security” and carries a warning from intelligence experts and
former officials that the increased use of personal phones and emails by
ministers could pose a risk.
‘The Telegraph says “Migrants side by side in hotels with public” in plans
by the home secretary to “regain control of the Channel crisis.”
Meanwhile the Mail reports “Petrol bomber attacks migrant centre”.
‘The Mirror says “NHS is facing worst winter on record” and carries a
report from inside a hospital. The Sun splashes with “England ace: my
racist troll hell” with testimony from England defender Reece James.The Financial Times reports that “Moscow’s ditching of Ukraine grain
deal ‘catastrophic for poor nations”, while the i says “Sunak under Tory
pressure to U-turn over climate snub.”
Today in Focus
Today In Focus asks what it takes to be an undercover police officer. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA.
What does it take to be an undercover police officer?
It’s very rare for an undercover police officer to talk about their work. It’s
ajob that combines a knack of assimilating into different characters,
winning the trust of people from all walks of life and specifically from the
criminal underworld, David Taylor is no longer a serving officer, but he
tells Nosheen Iqbal what it takes to go undercover for long investigations
and what the rewards can be. He also talks of the toll it can take,
professionally and personally.
Cartoon of the day | Edith PritchettClicking the
dodgy link
in a spam
email
Predictably, crashed everything
Edith Pritchett / The Guardian Illustration: Edith PritchelWThe Guardian
Signup for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett’s cartoons, the
best Saturday magazine content and an exclusive look behind the scenes
The Upside
Abit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
‘Andrea Busfield at her graduation, Photograph: Andrea Busfield
Following news that Adele plans to complete an English Literature degree
after her upcoming Las Vegas residency, journalist and author Andrea
Busfield writes about her own experience topping the class as a maturestudent. At the age of 41, Busfield enrolled with the Open University,
studying part-time for a degree in international relations over six years.
“In some respects school is wasted on the young,” she says. “I know with
absolute certainty that I would never have achieved a first if I had gone to
university aged 18”.
Sign.up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every
Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained
throughout the day - with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for
iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
* Quick crossword
+ Cryptic crossword
Manage your emails | Unsubscribe | Trouble viewing’
red Ofc: Kings Place, 99 York Way, London, N1 9GU, Registered in England No,