Kate Andrews is economics editor of The Spectator
Westminster’s much anticipated summer blockbuster dropped last night: ‘A Beacon of Hope: The UK Vaccine Story’ was released on 10 Downing Street’s Twitter and YouTube accounts just after 6pm. The video was teased on Twitter on 10 March, featuring a dramatic score and a tagline ‘coming soon’, raising questions as to how ‘soon’ it would
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The Biden administration has announced that it will hike the highest rate of income tax and almost double capital gains tax to pay for its enormous spending plans. But will they stop there, or are more taxes on the less well off coming down the line? Freddy Gray speaks to Kate Andrews.
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Joe Biden is approaching his first 100 days in office. How has he fared, and has he delivered on his promise to bring about a return to normalcy? (1:15) Plus, the proposed European Super League wasn’t super after all. The six English teams invited to join the league pulled out earlier this week, and the
I’ve spent nearly my entire adult life working in Britain, but Uncle Sam never forgets about Americans abroad. We can vote in elections. We still file tax returns. And we also, it seems, benefit from Joe Biden’s spending binges. His latest instalment slipped through my letterbox last week: a cheque for $1,400. It’s a stimulus;
A trial in the District Court of Minnesota is set to change America. Derek Chauvin has been found guilty of murdering George Floyd last summer, when the police officer shoved his knee into the civilian’s neck for nearly ten minutes, after Floyd was suspected to be using a forged $20 note. Over 40 witnesses gave evidence during
Over the past few months, each labour market update from the Office for National Statistics has suggested forecasts predicting mass unemployment were wide of the mark. In the three months leading up to February, unemployment was estimated to hover at 4.9 per cent, 0.9 per cent higher than the previous year but down 0.1 per
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A number of cases of the South African variant have been detected around parts of London, leading to surge testing of those neighbourhoods this week. Could this variant stunt the UK’s vaccine rollout? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.
UK GDP ever so slightly edged up in February, growing 0.4 per cent according to today’s update from the Office for National Statistics. No surprises here: there were no changes to lockdown restrictions between January and February, which gave the economy little room for manoeuvre. The ONS has revised January’s GDP fall from 2.9 to
A few months ago, the Prime Minister was describing the jabs as the ‘scientific cavalry’ that was on its way to save us from our Covid – and lockdown – woes. But now the cavalry has arrived in the form of a vaccine rollout of unqualified success, the rhetoric has changed. The vaccine is no
The calls for tax hikes is ramping up. Last December the Wealth Tax Commission recommended a ‘one-off’ 5 per cent levy on the assets of Britain’s wealthy to pay for the growing costs of Covid-19. In January Oxfam followed suit, using its yearly inequality report to call for big taxes on wealth and high incomes.
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Will life ever return to normal? (00:50) Is the government pandering to statue protestors? (14:30) And what’s Prince Harry’s new job? (27:55) With Kate Andrews, the Spectator‘s economics editor; Spectator columnist Matthew Parris; Spectator contributor Alexander Pelling-Bruce; Historic England CEO Duncan Wilson; Dominic Green, deputy editor of the Spectator‘s US edition; and Sam Leith, literary
In November, when cases were surging and a second lockdown was under way, Boris Johnson made a big promise: things might look bleak, he said, but the ‘scientific cavalry’ would arrive. It duly did, with a vaccination programme that became the envy of Europe. The mood of the country lifted. Today, Britain is still on
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Under-30s should be offered an alternative to the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, the UK’s vaccine regulator said this afternoon. What does this mean for the UK’s roadmap? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.
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The pandemic has led to a surge in digitisation in so many aspects of our lives. Cloud computing, in particular, has been a cornerstone of this time – not least for stay at home employees to maintain their productivity during a turbulent time. But what actually is cloud computing, and is it all that it’s
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The next stage of lockdown easing is going as planned, but some caveats around international travel and vaccine passports are being floated for further down the line. What did the government’s announcements today clear up? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.
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Brits will be offered two lateral flow tests a week, it was announced last night. The expansion of testing, the government says, will allow those who haven’t been vaccinated to continue life as normal. But is it really necessary? Cindy Yu speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews.
How strange to have spent a year in a world where to hug someone outside of your household is not allowed. For the past five days, six people in England have been able to meet up outdoors again, but only in a socially distanced way. Previously, the argument for crackdown on such instinctive human behaviour
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Keir Starmer said that needing a vaccine passport to go to the pub would go against ‘British instinct’, in an interview today. But is he really against the proposals? Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and James Forsyth.
Pfizer and BioNTech have released some extraordinary findings from a Phase 3 trial involving 46,307 participants, between seven days and six months after a second dose was administered. The vaccine was found to have a 91.3 per cent efficacy rate. These findings line up with the real world data coming out of Israel, which has
Britain’s Covid data is moving in the right direction. Today’s update from the Office for National Statistics confirms this on one of the most critical measures: excess deaths. For the second consecutive week, deaths in England and Wales are below the five-year average. In the latest week ending 19 March, there were 10,311 registered deaths —
