Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: new lockdown ‘could be extended’

Michael Gove – New lockdown ‘could be extended’ Yesterday Boris Johnson announced that England would be entering another lockdown as of this Thursday, which will last for, at the very least, the entirety of November. Sophy Ridge’s first guest of the day was the Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, who told her that the envisioned end-date of Wednesday 2nd December was subject to change if the rates of Covid infection could not be reduced: SR: If the data on the whole is not looking as you are hoping, then the national lockdown could be extended? MG: We will always take a decision in the national interest, based on evidence… SR:

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The country’s biggest teaching union would deny kids their education

Britain’s first lockdown hammered our kids. Being away from school for months widened the educational gap between rich and poor and harmed the prospects and wellbeing of children from low-income homes. Knowing that, what do you call people who want to close schools again? Here’s the punchline, although it’s not funny: teachers. Or more accurately, teachers’ unions. You might have missed this on a grim Saturday afternoon, but even before Boris Johnson had confirmed Lockdown 2, the National Education Union was calling for schools to be included. That would mean another month (at least) away from school for millions of kids, followed by reduced schooling. ‘The Government should include all

Carl Heneghan

The ten worst Covid decision-making failures

Dealing with a pandemic requires a clear aim, planning, intelligence and supreme flexibility to react to the unknown. However, ever since reports broke in the West of a newly-identified virus in Wuhan in January, this has not been the case in Britain. The result? We have suffered a very high death toll, and substantial social and economic damage has been inflicted on our society. It did not need to be this way. Our Covid-19 outcome could have been very different if certain mistakes were not made. Here we list some of the major decision-making blunders made over the last eight months. 1. Lack of a clear aim In March, Health

Saturday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will Tory MPs back Boris’s lockdown plan?

Boris Johnson did not want to give a Downing Street press conference this evening. The Prime Minister had hoped to present his plans for a national lockdown before the House of Commons on Monday.  However, after the plans made their way into several of the Saturday papers, the government had to move faster than hoped. The last minute nature of today’s announcement was evidenced by the fact the start time of the conference was pushed back by several hours. When the presser finally begin, the Prime Minister began by handing over to Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance for a briefing on the latest data. While the graphs they presented drew

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why have No. 10’s Covid forecasts changed so much?

Just ten days ago, Boris Johnson was attacking lockdowns for the “psychological, the emotional damage” they inflict: the effect on mental health as well as the economy. Then, he saw Covid-19 as a menace that could be managed with a “commonsensical approach” of local and regional measures. Now, he sees Covid as a monster capable of overwhelming the NHS and warns of a “medical and a moral disaster” if we do not do a stay-at-home lockdown. His view of the virus seems to have changed, utterly. Why? As soon as he started his statement, he turned to the graphs on which his case hangs. It was not so much new data, but new models showing new forecasts. Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief

Boris Johnson

Why England is going back into lockdown

I’m afraid no responsible Prime Minister can ignore the message of those figures. When I told you two weeks ago that we were pursuing a local and a regional approach to tackling this virus, I believed then – and I still believe passionately – that was the right thing to do. Because we know the cost of these restrictions, the damage they do, the impact on jobs and on livelihoods and on people’s mental health. No one wants to be imposing these kind of measures anywhere. We didn’t want to be shutting businesses, pubs, restaurants in one part of the country where incidence is very low when the vast bulk of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why a new lockdown is so difficult for Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson had set his face against an England-wide lockdown. He rejected the idea when Sage proposed it back in September, lambasted it when Keir Starmer backed it, but today he is announcing it.  What makes this situation so politically difficult for Johnson is that his own parliamentary party is deeply uncomfortable with the idea of an England-wide lockdown. They preferred a targeted, regional approach – and there is anger among MPs that this is being superseded by an England-wide approach just weeks after the regional tier system was introduced.  Now, you can point out that Emmanuel Macron and the Irish government have also been forced to reverse themselves on the

Robert Peston Robert Peston

England’s new lockdown regime

These are the measures to be announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at his 5 p.m. press conference, as I understand it. They will last until 2 December. And they are, in effect, a new ‘Tier 4’ that will be imposed for a month – initially to the whole of England – in a bid to curb a rise in coronavirus cases. All pubs and restaurants are to close, though takeaways and deliveries will be permitted. All non-essential retail will close, though supermarkets won’t have to follow the Welsh example of fencing off non-essential goods. There will be no mixing of people inside homes, except for childcare and other forms

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Covid spiralling out of control? A review of the evidence

From Wednesday, it seems, we will be back in national lockdown, the government having been convinced that the second wave of Covid-19 is spiralling out of control. Not for the first time, ministers appear to have taken their cue from an Imperial College study – this time the REACT 1 study which claimed on Thursday that 100,000 people a day are being infected, and that cases are doubling every nine days. The government is also reported to have been swung by the changing opinion of deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, who believes that a regional strategy is not longer enough to save the NHS from being overwhelmed. But are

Katy Balls Katy Balls

New poll: how voters rate the government’s coronavirus response

With Boris Johnson considering placing England under national lockdown measures, what ever path the he chooses he will face a backlash. Sage scientists are pushing for tougher measures while anger is growing in the parliamentary party over the prospect of a further clampdown. So, what of public opinion?  New polling for Coffee House by Redfield & Wilton Strategies looks at the public response to the government’s coronavirus strategy. It’s not particularly pleasant reading for the government. The poll – made up of a sample of 3,000 questioned on 28 October – found that 35 per cent surveyed thought the government was currently taking the right measures to address the coronavirus pandemic, with 46 per cent saying they are

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is a second national lockdown imminent?

17 min listen

The whole of England could be put into lockdown again, reports this morning claim, as coronavirus cases continue to rise at a rate above the worst-case scenario modelled by SAGE. It comes as newly published minutes from the first week of October show the advisory group pushed the government to take action sooner. Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

New Sage leak says NHS could be overwhelmed within weeks

A few days ago, The Spectator published a classified ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ from Sage, written back in the summer and fearing a second wave that would claim 85,000 lives, peaking at about 800 deaths a day. A new leak this morning from the Cabinet Office, using current data, paints a far-bleaker picture: 2,000 deaths a day – even 4,000 if no action is taken. The NHS is shown to be just weeks away from being overwhelmed, even if it uses its surge capacity. This is likely to be the document being used on Boris Johnson to urge a national lockdown. It’s worth looking at in some detail. We have moved away from being two weeks behind

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Matthew Parris, Lionel Shriver and Douglas Murray

25 min listen

On this episode, Matthew Parris talks about how, on free school meals, he’s truly fallen behind the zeitgeist; Lionel Shriver on why she’s voting for Biden, warts and all; and Douglas Murray’s reflections from America in the days before the election. Tell us your thoughts on our podcasts and be in for a chance to win a bottle of Pol Roger champagne by filling out our podcast survey. Visit spectator.co.uk/podcastsurvey.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Boris has already bungled the second lockdown

‘We could have got away with less if we had done it earlier.’  Those words to me from a scientific adviser to the government – about the lockdown of England the prime minister is planning to announce, probably on Monday – foreshadow a looming crisis of confidence in Boris Johnson’s stewardship of measures to tackle the Covid-19 crisis. Here is the chronology that is devastating for Johnson. By taking tougher action earlier, our way of life and economic activity could have been maintained in a more normal way for longer On 21 September, his advisers on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommended there should be a two-week circuit-breaking lockdown

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is the UK heading for a second national lockdown?

Is the UK heading for a second national lockdown? That’s the question being asked in Westminster as coronavirus cases rise and SAGE members call for further measures. On Friday, the Prime Minister met with Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove to discuss how best to respond to new NHS data on the spread of coronavirus across the country. While no final decisions have yet been taken, one option on the table is national measures. The idea being that Boris Johnson could move from a localised approach to national restrictions – with everything other than educational institutions and essential retail to close. The planned time period of this would be around a month (bear in

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Did Eat Out to Help Out spark a second wave?

Did the Eat Out to Help Out scheme help to spread Covid-19? That is the eye-catching claim of Thiemo Fetzer, an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick. In a working paper entitled: Subsidising the Spread of Covid-19: evidence from the UK’s Eat Out to Help Out Scheme, he estimates that the scheme accounted for between eight and 17 per cent of Covid clusters during August, when it operated. Given that the scheme cost taxpayers £500 million, it is not a bad idea to attempt to work out what it achieved, if anything. Nevertheless, there is something a little unsatisfactory about this claim – not least because Fetzer

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Here’s why the Covid ‘new normal’ won’t last

Is the ‘new normal’ here to stay? Many people assume so. Working from home will become the default, people will go on fewer holidays and business trips will become a thing of the past. I’m not convinced. In fact, while the second wave means the current restrictions won’t vanish overnight, it seems almost certain that, when Covid is finally a thing of the past, life will return to the ‘old’ pre-pandemic normal. People will be desperate to go out as much as they can, see people in person more and crave the social interactions they are currently missing out on. Don’t believe me? Remember at the start of lockdown the

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Will there be a Labour civil war?

15 min listen

Though there are grumblings from the left of the Labour party over Corbyn’s suspension, Keir Starmer has taken today to set the narrative in his favour. The polls, showing Labour in the lead, also help. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about how Starmer may have nipped a civil war in the bud.

Nina Jankowicz

What Trump can learn from Boris in fighting fake news

The US election has, once again, be plagued by a tide of disinformation and fake news. But don’t point the finger at Russia, Iran, or China. With four days left to vote in the presidential election, American politics has become so polarised that the threat of foreign interference pales in comparison to our own domestic untruths. For months, we’ve been battling falsehoods about the safety and security of mail-in balloting, which president Trump shares with hundreds of millions of social media followers. He has also shared tweets suggesting Osama bin Laden is not dead, and refused to disavow the QAnon conspiracy theory, which a new poll finds half of his supporters believe.