Christmas

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s Christmas Covid gamble

Boris Johnson is taking a gamble with his decision to stick with the easing of Covid restrictions for Christmas. The gamble is that people will suddenly start adhering to government guidance and severely restrict their contact with their families, even though the law does not force them to do so. Although, as the Prime Minister argued at this afternoon’s press conference, the government’s current level of involvement in people’s lives is probably the strictest since Cromwell, it remains the case that it has repeatedly concluded this year that it has to force people to restrict their social contact, rather than ask them – whether that’s nicely or in the current

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Keir Starmer’s late criticism of Christmas easing

Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer both assumed that today was the last PMQs before Christmas, suggesting that they don’t expect Parliament to be sitting next Wednesday. Their exchanges were particularly unenlightening this week. Starmer argued that his concerns about the tier system had been justified by the fact that cases are rising in three quarters of tier 2 areas and half of tier 3. Johnson again attacked him for abstaining on the vote on the tier system. Interestingly, Starmer set himself fully against the Christmas easing calling it ‘the next big mistake’ and approvingly quoted the joint Health Service Journal / British Medical Journal editorial, which called for a ban

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Four-nations Christmas Covid truce hangs in balance

It’s become a regular refrain to hear that Brexit talks have been extended. Now the same applies to negotiations over the Christmas Covid rule relaxation. After various scientific advisers warned the UK government against going ahead with its planned five day relaxation of the rules (which would see three household permitted to gather together), representatives for the four nations discussed the policy on a call this evening. The result? No decision as of yet. As things stand, there has been no agreed change to the rules. Instead one source on the call tells the BBC:  ‘There was broad recognition commitment has been made to people and they will expect us to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer piles on pressure over the Covid Christmas amnesty

Sir Keir Starmer has called on Boris Johnson to hold an emergency Cobra meeting, arguing that the current plans to ease coronavirus restrictions over Christmas should be reviewed. The Labour leader said this afternoon that his party would support the government if it decides that tougher measures are needed. He stops short of calling for the Christmas easing to be cancelled, presumably because he’d rather not be the political grinch in this case. But he is still pushing Johnson. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Starmer argues that the current tier system has not been working and that the government cannot ignore the rising cases. He writes: It has become increasingly clear

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Was endorsing Boris one of my worst misjudgments ever?

Now that our social lives are a Venn diagram that only mathematicians can understand I am officially becoming a recluse. I’ve been getting to this point for years, but since the latest Covid rules mean that what we can and can’t do until ‘vaccine freedom day’ can only be understood if you have a head for shaded charts, I am resigning from polite society, in so far as I was ever in it. Boris may as well have announced 375 tiers and a rule saying anyone who wants to celebrate Christmas needs to sit inside an actual bubble and roll themselves along the floor. I have no idea what the

Friday

Dr Chris Papadopoulos

The case against the new Christmas Covid rules

‘The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe.’ These are the government’s own words. Yet, despite this almost sacred pledge, the four administrations of the UK have agreed to gamble on relaxing restrictions over Christmas, potentially rewarding Covid-19 with the biggest present of them all. With any gamble, there are stakes, risks and prizes. The stakes in this case are people’s lives — they could not, therefore, be any higher. As for prizes, there are several that officials seem to be eyeing up. First is the prize of perceived compassion: that citizens see a commitment to balance, moderation, and kindness after the pain of a very difficult

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Christmas is on, Trump is off and Piglet stars on a 50p piece

Home The AstraZeneca vaccine developed by the University of Oxford was found to be 70 per cent effective — 90 per cent among those given a half-sized first dose and a full-sized second dose. It does not require supercooling. The United Kingdom had ordered 100 million doses. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 22 November, total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus) had stood at 54,626 including 2,860 in the past week, compared with 2,878 the week before. The proportion of secondary school pupils absent for reasons connected to Covid-19 rose to 22 per cent. Travellers from abroad would from 15 December be allowed to

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I stop my boss giving me a Christmas hamper?

Q. For many years my boss gave each member of his small team a very generous Christmas gift voucher from John Lewis. I was always able to put this to good use and looked forward to receiving it. Unfortunately he decided last year that these vouchers were a bit unfestive and instead we each received a large hamper from an upmarket grocer. While I know that some of my colleagues actually preferred the hamper, my husband and I were disappointed. Crystallised ginger, truffle crisps, mini Christmas puddings and jars of obscure paté sadly do not suit our perhaps unsophisticated palates, although we managed to regift most of it quite successfully.

The Spectator

Which countries are most sceptical about vaccines?

Gloss over Should we be worried that the head of research into respiratory drugs at AstraZeneca is called Dr Pangalos, given that his near namesake, Dr Pangloss, is a byword for foolish optimism? Dr Pangloss was tutor to Candide in Voltaire’s satire on Gottfried Leibniz’s work on theodicy: the attempt to reconcile why a benevolent and all-powerful God should allow evil, tragedy — or a pandemic — to exist. Dr Pangloss’s favourite phrase, ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’, encapsulates Leibniz’s belief that the Earth, for all its apparent faults, was the best that God could possibly have created. Dr Pangloss’s belief collides with

Laurie Graham

The infantilism of Advent calendars for grown-ups

Long ago and far away, small children used to arm-wrestle their siblings for the privilege of opening a door in a cardboard Advent calendar. It was reward enough to find a picture of an angel or an awestruck donkey. How quaint that now seems. Because then Cadbury saw an opportunity and launched an alternative calendar, with little chocolate inducements. I mean, which would you choose, the donkey or a chocolate button? It was a no-brainer. Childhood, which used to end around the time you were tall enough to reach a clocking-in machine, now drifts on and on. Grown men forget to leave home, women in their fifties buy colouring books,

Rachel Johnson

I was dreaming of a cancelled Christmas

I am on the record as being, if not a convicted seasonal denier, at least insufficiently Christmassy. Last year I interviewed Noel Gallagher for the Christmas cover of a magazine and we bonded over our mutual dread of what our American friends call, dispiritingly, holidays. ‘Christmas Day’s the longest day, longer than D-Day — and more stressful,’ he moaned. ‘You’re sitting there exhausted, thinking, “And it’s only 11 o’clock”.’ For the avoidance of doubt, I love Christmas trees, holly, mistletoe, church services, chestnut stuffing and mince pies. I do not love schlepping round the shops, all playing Slade on a loop, in the sleet buying things people don’t want, and

Tuesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

A Jewish view on lifting lockdown for Christmas

I never expected to become a fake Rabbi. But this year, on Yom Kippur of all days, it happened. In the middle of the Pandemic, Jews were faced with the problem of marking the holiest day of the year without being able to meet up even for prayer. Communal prayer is a central feature of Judaism, especially on the day when we collectively atone for our sins. As the day approached, my family’s discussions (by FaceTime, of course) increasingly focused on how depressing it was going to be sitting at home alone, not eating. An idea quietly formed in my mind. What if I could put on some sort of

Sunday

Robert Peston

It will be a three-family, five-day Christmas

Nothing will be decided in a formal sense until all four nations of the United Kingdom are as one. And the decision is slightly harder because Northern Ireland’s leadership wants a Christmas consensus with Dublin. But it is looking highly probable that all four UK governments’ special Christmas exemption from coronavirus restrictions will allow us to socialise with people from two households in addition to our own household over five days beginning on 23rd of December and ending on 27th December. Or to put it another way, for those five days, a typical family will be able to enjoy festive meals indoors with both sets of grandparents, or two groups

Wednesday

Kate Andrews

No. 10’s Christmas trade-offs

The government’s Covid-19 strategy is designed to keep Christmas gatherings on the cards. But what might be the trade-offs? At this morning’s Downing Street press conference on Covid-19 data, Public Health England’s Dr Susan Hopkins and deputy chief scientific adviser professor Dame Angela McLean gave some indication of what tactics could be used to make Christmas week feel as normal as possible. Dr Hopkins referenced Sage advice, suggesting that ‘for every day we release, we’ll need two days of tighter restrictions’. (Public Health England has since issued a correction to this statement, saying every day of ‘release’ will require five days of increased restrictions.) If this advice were adopted by government

Sunday

Kate Andrews

Backsliding on a lockdown end-date has begun already

Will England’s lockdown end on 2 December? Even before this morning’s media round there was good reason to suspect it might not. The first national lockdown – we were originally told – would be for three weeks, with the explicit aim of building more capacity in the National Health Service. But the goalposts shifted and three weeks turned into more than three months: despite daily Covid deaths peaking in April, pubs and restaurants didn’t reopen until early July. Weeks later gyms and other leisure sectors followed, and public transport guidance changed to encourage employees back to their offices. This morning, half a day after the Prime Minister laid out his

Thursday

Bruce Anderson

My recipe to cure a hangover

Journalists exaggerate, often reaching for superlatives to chronicle mildly interesting events. Even so, there are times when it is necessary to become hyperbolic. 2019 was an extraordinary year. As Chou En-lai might have said, it is too early to assess its significance. We will be doing that for at least the next 20 years. Indeed, it may turn out to be one of the most important dates in our peacetime history. The new year has also started with a bang. It was cunning of the government to persuade Donald Trump to drive Dominic Cummings out of the headlines, but that will not exhaust 2020’s disruptive potential. Exhaustion leads one to

Wednesday

Toby Young

Christmas with my brother

Ever since I was a child, I’ve associated Christmas with my mentally disabled brother Chris. Technically, he’s my half-brother — I have four half-siblings and a whole one — but to refer to him that way feels a bit mean-spirited, as if I’m trying to put some distance between us. Is ‘mentally disabled’ the right term to describe him? When I was growing up, the psychiatrists had him down as ‘schizophrenic’, but he was later reclassified as suffering from Asperger’s syndrome. After that particular diagnosis fell out of fashion, he became, simply, ‘autistic’, which is probably accurate, although too vague to convey much about him. Chris has been institutionalised since

The Spectator

Letters: Should conservatives be worried that high-spending Boris has a majority?

My father’s imprisonment Sir: Harald Maass’s piece on the plight of Uyghurs in China (‘A cultural genocide’, December 14) captures the grim reality of what has been happening. Articles like this draw vital attention to the crisis. I am an ethnic Uyghur and live in Belgium with my wife and children. My father, a 58-year-old secondary school teacher from Xinjiang, was jailed in China in April 2018. No reason was provided by the authorities as to why, and there was no trial or any other legal procedure. He was obviously imprisoned just because he is a Uyghur. After 18 months in prison, he was finally released recently and is at

The Spectator

What did psychics predict was going to happen in 2019?

Bah humbug Some of the things reported to have been banned this Christmas: — Mulled wine banned from being sold by street traders at Christmas fayres in Castleford, West Yorkshire, on the grounds it would break a Public Spaces Protection Order designed to stop street drinkers. — Christmas lights banned by health and safety officers in Pembury, Kent, on the grounds they each weighed more than 4kg. — Children banned from sending more than one Christmas card each to classmates at Belton Lane Primary School, Grantham, on the grounds that cards are environmentally unfriendly. — Glitter banned from Marks and Spencer cards, wrapping paper and decorations. Crystal balls What psychics

Richard Bratby

Beer, sweat and jockstraps: the real history of the CBSO

In childhood, the theme tune to The Box of Delights was the sound of Christmas. The melody was ‘The First Nowell’ but that wasn’t what cast the spell. It was the way the harp glinted and pealed, and the eerie wisp of the ‘Coventry Carol’ that drifted through on muted violins: a masterclass in orchestration for a BBC teatime audience. After inquiries at Circle Records in Liverpool (this was pre-Amazon), my father established its identity: the Carol Symphony, by a composer with the pleasingly Edwardian name of Victor Hely-Hutchinson. And that was that, for me anyway, until three decades later, rifling through the archive of the City of Birmingham Symphony