Coronavirus

Thursday

Matthew Parris

Boris Johnson has defied the pro-lockdown groupthink

Should the name of Dominic Cummings ever make it into the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, there’s one Cummings phrase our successors are sure to see. ‘Weirdos and misfits’ were what he valued. He said so in his blog, describing his preferred applicants for a job with his team at No. 10. I like the phrase. Such misfits can so often light the pathway where more timid minds and characters lose their nerve or their way. Cummings has always valued disruptors; always railed against Orwell’s ‘groupthink’; always rated the kind of people who question the conventional wisdom, the nostrums of the hour. And good for him. He’s one of them,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

China is not as strong as it appears

The theory that the pandemic began with a leak from a research laboratory in Wuhan is rapidly gaining currency. Since Matt Ridley’s cover piece for The Spectator last week, Joe Biden has ordered US intelligence agencies to ‘re-double their efforts’ and report to him within 90 days on the origins of Covid. The US administration has made it clear that the various intelligence agencies are split on whether they believe the virus is natural or man-made. It is doubtful whether the US agencies will be able to come to a conclusion with any great confidence. Definitive evidence is unlikely to emerge. But, as Ridley pointed out, the more time that

The Spectator

Have tennis players always been expected to give interviews?

Game, set, chat Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open after being fined $15,000 for failing to appear for a post-match press conference. Have players always been expected to give interviews? — Wimbledon was first televised live in 1937, the year of Fred Perry’s third and final victory against Gottfried von Cramm. A photo from 1938, when Bunny Austin was beaten by the US player Donald Budge in the final, shows that the post-match interview was already part of the coverage. Vaccine clots How many people in the UK have died from blood clots related to the AstraZeneca vaccine? Up to 27 May the Medical and Healthcare

Tuesday

Arieh Kovler

Israel scraps its redundant vaccine passports

So farewell, then, to Israel’s vaccine passport, the green pass. Less than three months after coming into effect, the Covid vaccination certification scheme was scrapped today, along with almost all of the remaining Covid-19 restrictions in public places. Israel was the first country to introduce a vaccine passport back in March. Cafes, bars, restaurants, gyms and plays were allowed to reopen to the public after months of lockdown, provided they only admitted vaccinated (and recovered) people. The pass took the form of a QR code downloaded from the health ministry or stored in a phone app. The scheme was vocally opposed by a small and passionate minority, but most Israelis

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The cold reality facing Sajid Javid

The most difficult time for a new secretary of state is normally the first three months in the job. An early mistake can sink confidence among both the public and Whitehall officials. But for Sajid Javid, his first three months as health secretary will be his easiest. The real challenge will come later. The easing of restrictions on 19 July will almost certainly go ahead, which means Javid will be able to point to an early success. I understand that the current plan, which the government will set out next week (though the formal decision on whether to proceed will only be taken a week beforehand), is for a comprehensive

Friday

James Forsyth

Could 21 June be delayed?

There are two key questions ahead of the 21 June reopening. First, as I say in the magazine this week, there is the issue of how much more transmissible the Indian variant is than the Kent one. According to papers published by Sage, it is a ‘realistic possibility’ that it is up to 50 per cent more transmissible. If the true figure is at the top of this range, then a full reopening would likely lead to another big wave of cases and put pressure on hospitals. But the view in Whitehall is that if it is only 30 per cent more transmissible, then it should be safe to proceed

Thursday

Ross Clark

Covid deaths in context

What would have been your overall chances of dying in the first 19 weeks of 2021 compared with recent years? According to a measure called ‘standardised mortality’ your overall chances of dying so far in 2021 have been just 1 per cent over the average of the past ten years — that is in spite of January’s peak in Covid deaths. We have been fed a daily diet of Covid deaths for over a year now. As Professor Gordon Wishart argues elsewhere on Coffee House, this daily bulletin has become pretty pointless now that deaths and hospitalisations are so low; a monthly total would be better.  Yet even at the height of

Monday

Katy Balls

What will Cummings say?

As the government puts the final touches to its social distancing review and Foreign Office ministers ponder the best response to the situation in Belarus, it’s a scheduled select committee appearance that is the subject of the most animated chatter in Westminster. Dominic Cummings is due to give evidence before the joint health and science committee inquiry into the government’s Covid response. Boris Johnson’s relationship with his senior aide has dramatically worsened since Cummings left government The session — which is due on Wednesday from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Cummings has said he is happy to stay longer) — has been causing nerves in 10 Downing Street for some

Thursday

Richard Dobbs

Why I’m considering cancelling my second Covid jab

I am considering cancelling my second Covid-19 vaccination. I received my first jab in March, and at the time I happily booked the date for the second one in June, confident that by then we would be continuing to see a fall in infections. But last week the story changed. The B.1.617.2 variant, first identified in India, could, according to Sage minutes, be 50 per cent more transmissible than the variant identified in Kent. Early numbers suggest we could be at the start of an exponential growth in infections. The lesson of the past year is that if you wait to act until you’re certain of the data, you’re too

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The government debate over June 21

The roadmap out of lockdown is the signature document of Boris Johnson’s new team in No. 10. It’s intended to be cautious, detailed and based on a new mantra of under-promising and over-delivering. It’s meant to strike a contrast with the chaos that came in the early stage of the pandemic by projecting an image of competence and calm. So far, so good. Each stage — including Monday’s easing — has proceeded as planned. The vaccine rollout has been the fastest in Europe (although the Prime Minister still complains, in private, that it could have gone faster) and is now credited by ministers as a large part of the reason

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Indian variant goes up, Santander goes down and pubs reopen

Home The government made noises about having to delay the lifting of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June in some parts on account of the Indian variant, which appeared more transmissible. ‘The race between our vaccine programme and the virus may be about to become a great deal tighter,’ Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said on television. The gap between first and second coronavirus vaccinations would be cut from 12 weeks to eight for over-fifties and the clinically vulnerable. The army was sent to help with testing in Bolton and Blackburn. By the beginning of the week, 37 per cent of the adult population had received both doses of coronavirus vaccination;

The Spectator

Why Britain must unlock on 21 June

The scare over the Indian variant of coronavirus this week is a taste of what to expect over the next few weeks, months or even years. Like all RNA viruses, Covid-19 mutates and has done so thousands of times already. New strains supplant old ones and, for a while, questions will be raised when one mutation comes to dominate. Is it more lethal? Is there a chance it could evade vaccines? Every time so far, there has been no significant reason to doubt the efficacy of the vaccines. So the government’s timetable for lifting Covid restrictions holds firm. How far should Britain go to try to fend off new variants?

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Hancock tries to calm holiday confusion

The government is sounding increasingly upbeat about the prospect of sticking to the roadmap. At this evening’s coronavirus press briefing, professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the Indian variant was probably no higher than 50 per cent more transmissible than the Kent strain, at least according to initial assessments. Meanwhile, Dr Jenny Harries said there was currently no evidence to suggest that the variant was driving up hospital numbers. But Matt Hancock was keen to remind viewers that 14 June is when the final decision will be taken on whether to stick to 21 June as the unlocking date. The Health Secretary also had to deal with the ongoing confusion over the amber list. He had

Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Inflation is the biggest threat to Boris

The vaccines are rolling out. Lockdown is easing, the EU has been forgotten about, and the Labour party has returned to its traditional pastime of plotting furiously against its leader. No one is even talking about wallpaper anymore. Things could hardly be going better for Boris Johnson, and that has been reflected in local election results and in the polls. There is one looming threat, however. The return of inflation. In truth, rising prices have been destroying governments for a hundred years, and it would be complacent to imagine this one will be the exception. President Biden has embarked on a tax, spend and borrowing spree the like of which

Friday

Kate Andrews

Can Boris keep his roadmap on track?

Boris Johnson’s favourite phrase since he released his roadmap out of lockdown has been ‘cautious but irreversible’. These are the three words that supposedly describe the UK’s six-month timeline to freedom since it went into lockdown at the start of the year.  But the phrase was notably absent from tonight’s press conference. Instead, the Prime Minister warned that the rise of the Indian variant B1617.2 could pose a ‘serious disruption to our progress, and could make it more difficult to move to step 4 in June.’ The government’s worries, as Johnson laid out tonight, are what he described as ‘important unknowns’. The key question is to what extent the virus is more

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Could the Indian variant slow unlocking?

So is the ‘irreversible’ lifting of lockdown really irreversible after all? There is a grim echo of what happened last year in the sudden panic over the Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he ‘rules nothing out’, following a meeting of the Sage committee over how to respond to the variant. Next month’s proposed reopening of society must now look in doubt. Monday’s relaxation, which will allow indoor hospitality for the first time this year, will for the moment go ahead, but we have seen how quickly these things can change — and with what little notice. Is the Indian variant really more transmissible, or vaccine-evading,

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

The pandemic’s transatlantic divide in executive salaries

‘Consider a temporary cut in executive salaries’ was the Confederation of British Industry’s advice to members at the start of the pandemic. Back then I was gripped by fears of a backlash against capitalism: top pay cuts would indeed be wise, I wrote, not least because ‘sacrifice now is sensible insurance’. Looking at last week’s election results, I needn’t have been concerned about a second coming of socialism. But I’m one of many advocates for responsible capitalism who have long worried about growing disparities between executive and average pay — the key multiple having risen from 50 to 120 over the past two decades — that rarely reflect underlying performance.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Scotland votes, Queen speaks and Israel-Palestine crisis escalates

Home A new complexion of British politics was revealed by the capture of Hartlepool by Jill Mortimer for the Conservatives in a by-election, with 15,529 to the Labour candidate’s 8,589. Since its formation in 1974, the constituency had been Labour. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said his party had ‘lost the trust of working people, particularly in places like Hartlepool’. The Conservative Ben Houchen was re-elected as mayor of the Tees Valley with 72.8 per cent of the vote. Of 143 English council seats, the Conservatives now control 63, 13 more than before, with 2,345 councillors; Labour lost control of eight councils to end up with 44, and 1,345

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

‘This was a horrible pandemic – but it wasn’t the big one’: Michael Lewis interviewed

Michael Lewis’s new book, The Premonition, is a superhero story — though one in which the superheroes don’t, in the end, win. It’s the true story of a group of far-sighted, tough-minded scientists who, in January last year, saw the coronavirus pandemic coming in the USA, and the politicians who wouldn’t listen to them. And at the heart of the book is the terrible discovery, as true here as it is in the States: we imagine that, come disaster, the people we elect will look after us. We’re told they’re well prepared. But when it comes down to it, they protect not us but themselves. The villain of Lewis’s book

Wednesday

Kate Andrews

When will the economy recover to pre-pandemic levels?

New growth figures were released this morning show that the economy contracted 1.5 per cent in Q1 this year and remains 8.7 per cent smaller than it was in Q4 2019 (the last quarter not to be impacted by the pandemic). Alongside this update, the Office for National Statistics also released its latest set of monthly figures, which saw GDP rise by 2.1 per cent in March — the biggest boost since August last year — taking the economy to 5.9 per cent below pre-pandemic levels. That GDP fell by just 1.5 per cent overall once again illustrates the extent to which businesses have developed a resilience to lockdowns. The first