All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Make no mistake: Layla Moran’s Lib Dem leadership platform is terrible. She wants to scrap Ofsted, stop publishing league tables of schools and call time on SATs for primary school kids. These policies are so bad that as a parent of three I would have to seriously think about leaving the country if Layla was ever put
John Hume emerged in 1964 as a modernising voice within the stale and defeated world of Catholic Nationalist politics in Northern Ireland – a world in which the Unionists seemed to hold all the cards, including their relative prosperity on the island of Ireland. His first major intervention was to insist that the credo of
I’m starting to think that Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer have quite similar views about the politics of trans rights, sex and gender. I’m also inclined to think this could be a good thing. In the last couple of weeks, both the PM and the Labour leader have been invited to wade into the lake
The government has restricted the movements of millions of people in England because Covid is apparently on the rise. But what happens when you start digging into the data? I have used two datasets to piece together the number of tests, cases and results for Pillar 1 tests (which are done in healthcare settings) and
Is Covid accelerating the eclipse of France and the UK as ‘great powers’? For over two centuries Paris and London have been seated at the top table in world affairs. The essential element of their power has been economic, allowing both states to maintain powerful defence budgets, pursue active foreign policies and in the last
A brief but sharp twist of the knife was felt across the world of our gagged choral musicians on Friday evening, when the Times Science Correspondent Tom Whipple tweeted ‘It’s not good news’ about the future of choral singing. Sage documents had ‘dropped’, he wrote, containing the ominous statement, ‘There is some evidence to suggest
We can’t travel with ease anywhere, anymore. First it was Spain, now Luxembourg is the latest holiday spot to require a two-week quarantine on return. But there is one destination that is guaranteed to be hassle as well as quarantine free: your home. If you’re wondering how you can make your 15-foot square lounge the
Rishi Sunak is contemplating a 2 per cent tax on goods sold online, possibly combined with a ‘green’ levy on delivery vans and a radical review of business rates, all designed to improve the survival chances of high-street retailers while harvesting more revenue from online sellers who have boomed during lockdown. About time too —
It is remarkable to think that just 15 days ago, Boris Johnson was setting out a plan to end all social distancing by November. But, as I say in The Times this morning, the mood in government has become much more pessimistic in the last week or so. This winter the government could be dealing
When the Intelligence and Security Committee’s (ISC) Russia Report was finally published last week, the name of one person who gave evidence will have leapt out for many people. Among the ‘external expert witnesses’ listed was none other than a certain ‘Mr Christopher Steele, Director of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd’. Steele, you may remember, was
In an effort to avoid another national lockdown at all costs, the government is relying on two tools: a comprehensive track-and-trace scheme and localised lockdowns. The first isn’t expected to be up and running until autumn at the earliest, after a series of setbacks and U-turns (the pains of which are already being felt, as
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Statistics released this week showed that England had the worst excess death rate in Europe during the first half of 2020. Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University about what’s behind the numbers.
For once I find myself on the other side of the argument in agreeing that ‘Big Chief’, the erstwhile tomahawk-wielding mascot of the Exeter Chiefs rugby club, deserved to be axed. He was an affront to Native Americans, perpetuating the calumny that their ancestors were – to quote the Declaration of Independence – ‘merciless Indian savages’.
I recently heard on the radio that last year an average of 14 pensioners a day had to sell their house to pay for their care. This was supposed to shock us. Actually, the figure seems remarkably low (a little over 5,000 a year) and, in principle, reasonable. Rather like home ownership itself, care in old
It’s not often that feminists threaten legal action over plans to increase women’s representation on public boards, so the Scottish Government has managed something of a feat. ‘For Women Scotland’, a volunteer-funded gender-critical lobby group, isn’t against the principle of the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act. It’s the Scottish Government’s definition of ‘women’ they
13 min listen
Overnight, the government announced a return of stricter social distancing measures in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and East Lancashire, with multiple households no longer allowed to meet indoors or in pubs and restaurants. Then, in an impromptu press conference today, the Prime Minister also called off the reopening of bowling alleys, casinos and indoor concert
Remember levelling up, whereby low-income areas in the Midlands and North would enjoy a greater share of the nation’s wealth? It is pretty hard to square with the government’s policy on releasing the country from lockdown. Rather, policy seems to be construed so as to make sure that the economies of the Midlands and North
Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard – and son of the former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev – has been nominated for a peerage by Boris Johnson today. The appointment has certainly raised eyebrows in Westminster, and perhaps suggests that Boris will be hoping for slightly more positive press in the tycoon’s papers
This afternoon, the government revealed the new peers who have been appointed to the House of Lords. New members of the Upper Chamber include Jo Johnson, Ian Botham, Evgeny Lebedev, Claire Fox and Charles Moore. Below is the full list of appointments: Political Peerages 2020 Nominations from the Leader of the Conservative Party 1. Lorraine Fullbrook – former
The national security law in Hong Kong has been passed for just over a month, but the scope of Beijing’s plans are now clear. This is a constitutional coup. The safeguards which have historically defended human rights in Hong Kong have been shattered. Rule of law has been replaced with rule by law – and
After deciding over the weekend to impose a two-week quarantine on Britons returning from Spain, Boris Johnson has pulled the hand brake once again. In a press conference alongside chief medical officer Chris Whitty, the Prime Minister announced that in light of a rise in coronavirus cases he would be pausing aspects of lockdown easing
Two weeks ago, I updated you from this podium on the progress we had made as a country against coronavirus. And in many ways that progress continues: the number of patients admitted to hospitals is still falling, and now stands at just over 100 each day; in April there were more than 3,000 coronavirus patients
Ever since Keir Starmer became Labour leader, there have been calls for him to publicly embrace Brexit to win back seats in the ‘Red Wall’. Starmer has stayed quiet on Europe since his victory, to the consternation of many Remainers who wanted him to push the importance of extending the transition period, before that opportunity
In last year’s Conservative leadership contest, Boris Johnson offered a hint of the style of management he would bring to the office of Prime Minister when he said his favourite moment in a film was the ‘multiple retribution scene in The Godfather’. Since then, Johnson and his team have confirmed in their actions that they are a
Boris Johnson’s policy of local lockdowns will no doubt come under increased scrutiny after new restrictions were imposed on Greater Manchester and parts of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire. Labour politicians have been quick to criticise the short notice of the overnight announcement while local residents have complained of confusion over the changes. It comes at a time of growing
My weekend plans have been ruined by Matt Hancock. The government has announced new lockdown restrictions for over four million people – banning separate households from meeting indoors – in Greater Manchester (where I live) along with parts of Lancashire and West Yorkshire. What does that mean in practice? When announcing the lockdown on Thursday
The Scottish Conservatives are now in crisis. Jackson Carlaw has resigned six months into his leadership and less than a year on from Ruth Davidson’s departure. The party is polling 35 points behind the SNP with another Scottish Parliament election due next May and a string of polls have shown a majority of Scots are
Yesterday was a historic day for Big Tech. For the first time, the CEOs of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple were forced to bend the knee before members of the US Congress, to answer questions about their monopolistic activities. ‘These platforms enjoy the power to pick winners and losers, shake down small businesses, and enrich
In the past few minutes, Jackson Carlaw has quit as leader of the Scottish Conservative party. In a resignation statement, Carlaw said that he had made the decision after concluding he was ‘not, in the present circumstances, the person best placed’ to lead the case for Scotland remaining part of the UK ahead of the Holyrood
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New figures show that England had the highest excess death rate across Europe in the first half of 2020. With another coronavirus wave looking imminent, can the government figure out why this happened in time for a second spike? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
On 12 May, the government stopped publishing international comparisons of its Covid-19 death toll in the daily press briefings. The argument was that the data wasn’t helpful, and perhaps even misleading: the way calculations were carried out varied country-by-country, with each nation on a different timescale when experiencing the peak of infections and death. There
I ❤ JK Rowling. There, now I’m a hate-monger, too. A digital advert reading just that — ‘I ❤ JK Rowling’ — has been removed from Edinburgh Waverley station, the city’s main rail terminus. The ad was taken out by Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a women’s rights campaigner better known as Posie Parker, who paid for a