Kate Andrews is deputy editor of The Spectator’s World edition.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s plan to press on with the new health and social care levy is not a huge surprise. The deal between them last year to get social care reforms over the line boiled down to a simple principle: new spending projects must be fully funded. That remains as important to the
After promising not to raise National Insurance in the 2019 manifesto, the Tories are preparing to do just that in April with their new ‘health and social care levy.’ The levy is set to add £200 to the average worker’s tax bill. Why have the Tories broken this manifesto promise? Because there was a pandemic,
If Boris Johnson manages to cling on to his job, he’ll have much more than the parties of lockdowns past to worry about. Britain’s cost of living crisis is worsening still, with CPI inflation rising by 5.4 per cent in the 12 months leading up to December last year. This has, once again, outpaced consensus, surging
Nearly two years after the UK experienced its biggest economic collapse in 300 years, the economy has returned to pre-pandemic levels. GDP is estimated by the ONS to have grown by 0.9 per cent in November, almost twice what had been expected – making it 0.7 per cent larger than it was in February 2020.
34 min listen
In this week’s episode: Is Boris Johnson done for? In this week’s Spectator cover story, our political editor James Forsyth and our deputy political editor Katy Balls write about Boris Johnson’s perilous position in the aftermath of the Partygate scandal. They join the podcast to predict the Prime Minister’s fate. (00:40) Also this week: Is
Around five years ago I started to receive requests online for photos of and details about my feet. I’ve been asked for foot pictures intermittently ever since. Most of the gentlemen are upfront about what they’re after (‘send foot pic plz’), but one man went above and beyond in his pursuits. Posing as an academic,
I knew when I boarded the plane home to America on Boxing Day that I was heading to an unhappy place. There may be lots of shortages in the United States right now, but anger is on tap (so say the think pieces). Americans are ‘furious’, ‘divided’, we’re told, and the ‘two sides’ are completely
Forget the desirability (or lack thereof) of tax hikes: can Britain survive them? That’s the economic question that kicked off the new year in cabinet this week when Jacob Rees-Mogg was reported to have encouraged the Prime Minister and his colleagues to roll back plans to bring in the new National Insurance levy this April.
11 min listen
The ‘lost’ texts sent by Boris Johnson to Lord Brownlow over his Downing Street flat refurbishment continues to dominate the headlines today. As the story unravels, it’s a sign that the Tory sleaze issues hitting Boris at the end of 2021 will continue way into the new year. ‘It’s not going to go down well
38 min listen
In this week’s episode: Is it time to rip up the idea of vaccine passports? In The Spectator’s cover story this week, our economics editor Kate Andrews writes about her disdain for the idea of vaccine passports after being exposed to their flaws first hand. She joins the podcast along with Professor Julian Savulescu from
Flying anywhere right now is difficult, but for those of us who are jabbed, it is at least possible. So just after Christmas I set off for America to see my family in Connecticut, armed with the NHS app technology which we were once assured would never be used as a vaccine passport. It’s now
32 min listen
Had Covid-19 not continued to dominate the headlines this year, there’s little doubt that the outcomes of the Brexit deal would have been at the forefront of our policy discussions. Britain has left the EU with a bespoke trade agreement, but it’s far from perfect, as the Northern Ireland Protocol continues to cause problems, especially
30 min listen
What are the greener solutions for heating Britain’s homes? The government estimates that heating residential homes accounts for around 15 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, many households are concerned about the future of their gas boilers and energy bills. The government laid out its heat and building strategy this
28 min listen
Everyone knows somebody who has asthma. 5.4 million people in the UK are currently receiving treatment and 200,000 of them have severe asthma. A form of the condition that doesn’t typically respond well to medication. For many, asthma is a severe and debilitating condition but there exists a disconnect between its severity and the organisation
After growing calls from retail and hospitality for financial support to weather the ‘unofficial lockdown’ plaguing these industries, the Treasury today has responded. After a week of conversations with business leaders, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a £1 billion support package this afternoon, which includes one-off grants worth up to £6,000 for hospitality and leisure
15 min listen
Boris Johnson chaired a Cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss the imposition of new Covid restrictions over Christmas. After three hours, the Prime Minister emerged to announce that no new restrictions had been decided on. These meetings are usually called for the Cabinet to rubber-stamp a decision made by Boris and his advisers, so what’s changed?
36 min listen
The world economy is bouncing back from the impacts of Covid 19. It has been bumpy year of recovery which has included labour shortages and consistent inflationary pressures. But it hasn’t been all doom and gloom. Kate Andrews, the Spectator’s economic’s editor reviews this financial year. She is joined by Martin Vander Weyer, the Spectator’s business
The cabinet will meet this afternoon, with more restrictions and even a new lockdown on the agenda. But have ministers been given the information they need to make an informed decision? There are rumours of briefing documents being sent around over the weekend with a pro-lockdown bias (i.e., heavy on the worst-case scenarios and not
90 min listen
Welcome to the special Christmas episode of The Edition! In this episode, we look at five major topics that dominated the news this year and the pages of The Spectator. First up a review of the year in politics with our resident Coffee House Shots’ team James Forsyth, Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. We discuss
Despite the political misery for Boris Johnson as he ends the year, he has a big hope: that salaries will boom in 2022. At Conservative party conference in October, he told fellow Tories what to expect. Yes, the country has gone through a phase of economic chaos — and as a result some supermarket shelves