James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
14 min listen
Chancellor Rishi Sunak pledged a further £65bn in today’s budget, bringing the government’s total spending during coronavirus to more than £400bn. But aside from splurges on extending furlough and the Universal Credit uplift, and new ‘restart grants’ offered to ailing businesses, the first belt-tightening measures were announced. Income tax thresholds will be frozen, and cooperation
It might seem a strange thing to say about a Chancellor who is presiding over an annual deficit of £355 billion, but Rishi Sunak is a fiscal conservative. This is what explains his decision to hike corporation tax to 25p in 2023. He thinks that this move is necessary to begin to put the public
13 min listen
Rishi Sunak has been a popular Chancellor, mainly because he’s responsible for pandemic giveaway after giveaway. But with tomorrow’s Budget, the tone will begin to change. Can he get through it unscathed? Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.
It is worth taking a moment to stand back and applaud Sarah Gilbert and the Oxford vaccine team’s achievement. The data released this evening by Public Health England shows that a single dose of both the Oxford /AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine cuts the risk of hospitalisation by 80 per cent in the over-80s,
10 min listen
Contact tracers are trying to find a person infected with the Brazilian variant of coronavirus, after they incorrectly returned their testing form. How serious is the new strain’s arrival, and could it have been stopped with a stricter quarantine policy? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
16 min listen
Katy Balls, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss Alex Salmond’s appearance before the Holyrood inquiry into how the Scottish government handled complaints of sexual misconduct made against him.
One of the big post-Covid unknowns is whether people will return to big city centre offices or not. As I write in the Times today, the truth is that no one in government can be quite sure of what is going to happen. The Government does have some levers it can pull if it wants
The Supreme Court has today upheld the ban on Shamima Begum returning to this country to contest the Home Secretary’s decision to strip her of her citizenship. The judges ruled that her right to a fair hearing did not trump national security considerations. But Begum should never have been stripped of her citizenship in the
14 min listen
The Chancellor is expected to announce tax hikes in next week’s budget as he looks to bolster the public purse and reassure markets. With capital gains and cooperation tax in his sights, how will the decision go down with Tory MPs? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.
17 min listen
Teachers will assess pupil’s grades next year, the Education Secretary said today. Has the decision come too late, and will it disadvantage students? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
Spare a thought for those due to sit their A-Levels next summer. They have already had considerable disruption to their education. But today’s announcement that this year’s A-Level grades will be done by teacher assessment risks compounding their misfortune. It means that the current lower sixth will be competing for university places — and jobs —
Tory MP’s reaction to the lockdown easing plan is a mixed bag. In general, they would have preferred a quicker timetable. But, as I say in the magazine this week, there is also relief that Johnson has explicitly ruled out going for a zero-Covid strategy and that there is an end date for all restrictions. A
‘Alas’ is a word used many times by Boris Johnson during the pandemic. It is how he prefaces announcements that the data is getting worse and so the government has to impose further restrictions. In recent weeks, though, the numbers have been going in the right direction. The first stage of the vaccination programme was
19 min listen
Michael Gove will lead a government review into immunity passports. Does his appointment make IDs a foregone conclusion, what will they look like, and when can we expect to see their domestic rollout? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.
Keir Starmer tried to use today’s PMQs to set up some future attack lines. First, he again tried to drive a wedge between Boris Johnson and the Covid Recovery Group, asking him to criticise the statements that members of it have made denouncing the lockdown easing plan. Unsurprisingly, Johnson didn’t take the bait. But if
20 min listen
Alex Salmond has pulled out from his appearance in front of the harassment complaints committee, where he was expected to give evidence about an alleged breach of the ministerial code by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Fraser Nelson speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the SNP implosion.
The most striking moment of Monday night’s press conference was Chris Whitty’s declaration that it was the ‘professional responsibility’ on health and social care staff to get the vaccine. Whitty stressed that the question of contracts — whether there should be a contractual obligation to take the jab — was a political decision and so
12 min listen
Boris Johnson has finally set out his roadmap for easing lockdown. On the episode, Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth about what to expect over the next few months.
Several of Tony Blair’s ideas have found their way into the government’s Covid policy, most notably the policy of prioritising first doses. The end of Boris Johnson’s statement today owed a lot to Blair. Johnson cast himself as charting a middle course between those who think the government’s plan is too ambitious and those who
The vaccine news today is good, and better than would have been expected even a month ago. The Public Health Scotland data indicating that four weeks after the first dose of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine there is a 94 per cent reduction in the risk of hospitalisation is phenomenal (the figure for Pfizer/BioNTech is 85
