Kate Andrews is economics editor of The Spectator
Today’s Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine update has raised hopes that life in Britain could start getting back to normal by spring. But cheers in Downing Street didn’t extend to AstraZeneca’s share price, which fell by nearly three per cent in response to the news. Why the dip in the wake of such good news? AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness – recorded
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
Could British residents be forced to have a Covid-19 vaccine? Yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused to rule out mandatory inoculation, telling TalkRadio that the government would ‘have to watch what happens and… make judgments accordingly’. His comments have sparked questions about how realistic the prospect of mandatory vaccination is in the UK, or what
Britain’s economy rebounded by a record 15.5 per cent between July and September, reflecting the relaxation of lockdown measures and increased consumer activity over the summer. This is the largest quarterly growth in the UK economy the Office for National Statistics has reported since records began in 1955. Services, manufacturing, production and construction saw big uplifts across
Lockdowns are designed to temporarily delay the spread of the virus – but at what cost? This was the line of questioning that kicked off yesterday’s evidence session for the Treasury Select Committee, scrutinising the work HM Treasury has conducted in relation to lockdown. Chair of the committee Mel Stride asked Clare Lombardelli, Chief Economic
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The Pfizer vaccine is being lauded by many as the silver bullet that could end the Covid crisis. Meanwhile, the UK has seen a record number of redundancies. Also, No. 10 suffered serious defeat in the Lords last night over its controversial Brexit bill. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.
Four days after a (much closer than predicted) election, American networks have called the race for Joe Biden, who has secured more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the race. CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News (and now the BBC) project Joe Biden will become the 46th President of the United States, as vote counting in Pennsylvania
President Donald Trump sees himself as a great friend to the UK: he backed Brexit, likes Boris, and has personal ties to Britain as well. He’s proud of his Scottish heritage, and long before he was running the nation, he was running golf courses in his mother’s home country. But it’s not obvious the UK government
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At Thursday’s coronavirus press conference, Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS, said a second wave ‘is real and it’s serious’, as he warned that 11,000 people were already in hospital with the virus. Is the NHS able to cope with another spike in infections, and has the government adequately prepared for winter? Kate
Tensions over the election outcome are escalating in the United States, as President Donald Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. Nearly a day and a half after Trump prematurely declared victory, he took to the stage at a press conference held in the White House and did so again, arguing ‘if you count the legal votes, I easily
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What are the latest developments in the US presidential election? (01:15) – Lara is joined by the Spectator’s economics correspondent Kate Andrews and the Spectator US’s editor Freddy Gray, who is currently in Pennsylvania. What is it like to care for a disabled child during a time of lockdown? (09:19) – The journalist Sam Carlisle
14 min listen
The Chancellor announced new furlough measures today, something that he has long been opposed to. Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and James Forsyth about whether or not Rishi Sunak has lost the argument.
England has only been back in national lockdown for a matter of hours and already economic support packages are rolling in — not for the duration of this lockdown (furlough was already confirmed until 2 December) but for the months to follow after the country exits lockdown. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has abandoned a return to
With voting day finally here, what can the state of the US economy tell us about tonight’s result? While the United States has been hit hard by Covid-19, the country’s economy is showing signs of improvement – and the latest stats could be good news for Donald Trump in his bid to defy the odds and win
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
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Kate Andrews interviews Swedish historian Johan Norberg in a Stockholm cafe about what we can and can’t learn from the Swedish Covid experience and the importance of liberty and trust in a functioning democracy.
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The UK was the first major economy to set a net-zero carbon emission target. But our work is cut out for us: 23 million homes fuelled by natural gas will need upgrading, while nearly 98% of vehicles on UK roads are still powered by petrol or diesel. Reaching net-zero will require big changes, but will
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The Chancellor’s new economic package was much more generous than his previous plans, and when asked, Sunak insisted he was just reacting to the changing coronavirus situation. But could these pandemic developments really not be foreseen? Katy Balls talks to Kate Andrews and James Forsyth.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has upgraded the jobs support scheme with a more generous package. The new measures, which will replace furlough on 1 November, will see eligible businesses pay just 5 per cent of their employee’s non-working hours (originally 33 per cent), with the government picking up the huge bulk of the tab once again.
China is now suffering only mild symptoms from the global pandemic. It is Europe that is stuck with the dreaded long Covid. The Chinese economy has rebounded and its exports are going through the roof, as it sells medical equipment to a world devastated by the pandemic it covered up. The virus originated in Wuhan,