The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Employment falls, exam failures and a roundabout rigmarole

issue 15 August 2020

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In fine weather with calm seas, 565 migrants in four days crossed the Channel in small craft. French officials said that 33 migrants in two boats that got into difficulty had been returned to Calais. In July more than 1,000 migrants crossed the Channel. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, appointed Dan O’Mahoney as Britain’s Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, tasked with somehow making such voyages ‘unviable’. Employment fell by 220,000 in the three months to June, the biggest quarterly fall since 2009, but unemployment remained at about 3.9 per cent, as millions stayed on the furlough scheme.

At the beginning of the week, Sunday 9 August, total deaths from Covid-19 stood at 46,566, with a seven-day average of 53 deaths a day. Figures for England included all who had ever been suspected of Covid-19; those in Scotland were limited to those who had been diagnosed within 28 days of death.

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