All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, pledged to continue his fight against the government today, after Number 10 broke off the negotiations with local leaders and suggested the area could be moved into Tier 3 without their consent. The talks collapsed this afternoon, after housing and local government Secretary Robert Jenrick expressed his ‘disappointment
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While the government has failed to strike a deal with Greater Manchester authorities to put the region into tier three, the Prime Minister is expected to announce an imposition of the restrictions in a press conference later today. But will coronavirus overwhelm Manchester’s hospitals? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.
A schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was decapitated in Paris on Friday for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, in what turned out to be a fatal lesson on freedom of expression. It is the second Islamist attack in the city in less than a month, after a Pakistani man injured two near the former offices of
That the lockdown had a terrible impact on the nation’s health — in ways other than just Covid-19 — is becoming clearer by the day. But just how bad was it? According to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, delayed and cancelled breast cancer treatments will cause between 281 and 344 additional
It’s the election equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting ‘LA-LA-LA-LA’. Joe Biden keeps ignoring questions about his possible role in the business dealings of his shady son. He keeps losing his temper with reporters who dare to insist that he has an obligation to answer legitimate public concerns. Most of the
Peter Mandelson said just before the 2001 general election, that ‘no politician would declare that they were “against” ambition’. And yet, that’s what Diane Abbott did on Newsnight yesterday evening. In an interview with Lewis Goodall, she spoke about Keir Starmer and the time she shared with him in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Asked about his
Who will win in the stand-off between Downing Street and Greater Manchester leaders over Covid restrictions? At first glance, it seems as though central government will inevitably emerge victorious, given ministers have the power to unilaterally impose tier-three restrictions on the area. Last night Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick threatened to do just that, saying: There
Corbynite ultra Diane Abbott has given an interview to Newsnight in which she denounces Labour leader Keir Starmer in her own particular, Abbott-esque way. Starmer’s problem? Ambition. Oh, and also being named ‘Keir’ by his mother. In reality, this is just a return to form for Diane. Her political career has been defined by the struggle against
Boris Johnson says the EU has refused to negotiate seriously with the UK for the last few months, and time has now run out for reaching a trade agreement before 31 December when the current transition period ends. The PM has been pressing the EU for a free-trade agreement comparable to Canada’s deal with the
Should it matter whether a teacher is male or female? Research out on Monday from the Education Policy Institute shows that teaching is becoming an overwhelmingly female-dominated profession. Men are far less likely than women to become teachers in the first place and those that do take the plunge are much more likely to quit
The government’s negotiations with the EU appear to be going a little better than their talks with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. While there is yet to an agreement on moving Greater Manchester into Tier 3, there has been a development on Brexit. On Friday, the Prime Minister used a video clip to warn the
It can be a hard task adjusting to life on the backbenches after leaving front-line politics. One minute you’re running the country, the next you’re being batted away by busy ministers. Former Prime Minister Theresa May appeared to learn that lesson this afternoon in the Commons, when submitting a question on Brexit to Michael Gove.
What century is it? I ask because, this morning, the five most senior bishops in the country publicly rebuked our democratically elected government and effectively called on the unelected peers of the House of Lords to rebel against a Bill passed by the House of Commons. Bishops throwing their spiritual weight around to try to
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The government is today expected to announce whether Greater Manchester will be placed into a tier three lockdown after negotiations with Andy Burnham continued over the weekend. Why have the talks been so protracted? Does the Mayor disagree with lockdown, or simply want more financial support? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
Wales’s introduction of a two week so-called Covid ‘firebreak’ is the most dramatic divergence between the UK nations yet. The ‘firebreak’, which will see people told to stay home and non-essential retail and hospitality closed, will give us some sense of how effective or not the ‘circuit-break’ that Sage proposed would have been. The ‘firebreak’
Is Andy Burnham’s resistance to tier three a principled stand or just an attempt to extract more money from central government? While Burnham is insisting that he ‘won’t be rolled over’ for money — he is believed to have been offered between £75 million to £100 million if he agrees to the higher level of
Just over six months ago Boris Johnson gave the British people one very clear instruction: ‘you must stay at home.’ It was impossible for anybody to anticipate the unintended consequences of those five words and quite how much pain and anguish they would unleash. Through a mixture of emotional coercion and relentless scaremongering millions of
As far as I can gather, the EU has only one genuinely non-negotiable red line that could prevent a resumption of talks on a free trade agreement with the UK – which will be made clear by its negotiator Michel Barnier in a telephone call on Monday with the UK negotiator David Frost. Barnier and
Is Greater Manchester about to go into tier three restrictions? That’s the hope in government following a week of negotiations, a war of words playing out in the media and internal Tory division. Metro mayor Andy Burnham — known in some parts of the internet as the ‘king of the north’ — has been resisting
If there is one word that best describes Senate Republicans in the age of Donald Trump, it’s “docile.” With the exception of a few independent-minded lawmakers who have been able to make a name for themselves or who have spent decades cultivating their own brand, the Senate GOP conference has played the roll of cannon
Nearly a month ago, I called for an urgent 24-day full national lockdown, arguing that the restrictions were unlikely to make a significant difference in reducing transmission. If we had acted strongly and decisively then, and implemented a circuit-breaker lockdown — as we now know that the government’s scientific advisory group Sage also wanted — we would be in
Andy Burnham – Trapping us in tier three will ’cause real harm’ The government’s standoff with regional leaders in the north west was played out on television this morning. Andrew Marr spoke to Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has been the most prominent voice in resisting the highest level of coronavirus restrictions
Something very significant happened during Boris Johnson’s national address this week. It was not the announcement of the new three tier local risk-based system of restrictions – imaginatively titled medium, high and very high. It was what didn’t happen. The Prime Minister resisted applying a ‘circuit break’ national lockdown which it now transpires was being
The appearance of SARS CoV-2 has been deemed worthy of extraordinary measures to contain or suppress its spread. With a rise in infections across Europe, politicians are once again scrambling to reintroduce a series of policies that amount to lockdown in all but name. France has introduced a curfew. Italy has made the wearing of
Boris Johnson has not had the easiest of relationships with the north lately. While the Prime Minister started his premiership promising to ‘level up’ northern regions, during the pandemic he’s ended up spending more time clamping them down, as Covid restrictions have been introduced across swathes of the north, and he’s clashed with local MPs
If they were to give out awards for best use of an anorak to communicate stroppy defiance then Andy Burnham would be about to break the stranglehold of former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher. In a city where it rains on more than 150 days a year, it is perhaps unsurprising that the anorak has become
For a while, it seemed as though Scotland was taking the lead on challenging the new gender orthodoxy. Despite all the odds (and taxpayer funding) being on the other side, gender-critical feminist campaigners secured a last-minute pause in the Scottish government’s plans to banish medical experts from the gender recognition process and shift to self-identification.
One of the more peculiar features of Covid is just how cleanly the crisis has split us down political lines. As a serving Tory councillor, you may assume that my views on masks, lockdown and the virus are predictable. But I’m also a microbiologist and I’m dismayed by the attitudes of some fellow travellers. Pandemics,
Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury, should be seen as a feminist hero. When she stood up in the House of Commons last year during a debate on the domestic abuse bill, Duffield moved several colleagues to tears as she recounted the hell she had endured at the hands of a violent male partner.
Despite being barely two months old, Spectator TV — The Spectator‘s latest broadcast venture — is already making headlines from New York to New Zealand. Andrew Neil‘s interview with Dr David Nabarro of the World Health Organization was raised in the House of Commons and even tweeted by Donald Trump. In this week’s episode, Andrew Neil is joined
In a press conference this afternoon, Boris Johnson stepped up his war of words with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, after the government failed to reach an agreement with the region about moving into Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions again today. The Prime Minister first singled out for praise the Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram, London Mayor
Boris Johnson will hold a press conference later this afternoon to discuss the new local restrictions — and how they’ll work. Even if he wanted to do a national circuit-breaker lockdown it is now almost politically impossible for him to do so given that Keir Starmer has now called for it, I say in the
Since Boris’s thumping general election win in December, I’ve lost count of the number of people – both Remainers and Leavers – who tell me that no deal just won’t happen. Boris needs a deal, they insist, and the EU will bend a little here and there to give the Prime Minister a ladder to climbdown. Yet I’ve