Katy Balls is The Spectator’s political editor.
27 min listen
Ruby Wax is an actress, comedian, and mental health campaigner, for which she received an OBE. On the podcast, she tells Katy about her difficult upbringing which put Carrie Fisher’s to shame, the moment she realised she couldn’t act, and her campaigning work, especially during these stressful times.
15 min listen
The Scottish government’s document ‘Looking Beyond Lockdown’ tries to do what it says on the tin. But it comes at an inconvenient time for the government in Downing Street, just as it is facing accusations that it hasn’t been clear enough with the public about what is needed to end the lockdown. On the podcast,
One issue the government is reluctant to discuss publicly is an exit strategy out of the lockdown. Inside 10 Downing Street, there’s a sense that it’s become a media obsession when the day-to-day focus ought to be encouraging the public to practise social distancing. During Wednesday’s press conference, chief medical officer Chris Whitty did discuss
14 min listen
It’s Keir Starmer’s first Prime Minister’s Questions as Leader of the Opposition, but it also happened to be the first virtual session, where MPs dialled down the line via Zoom. So how did it go?
14 min listen
Is Matt Hancock the government’s ‘fall guy’? As Katy Balls details on Coffee House, the Health Secretary’s 100,000 target has rubbed up some in government in the wrong way, with the Daily Telegraph’s front page today reporting that an insider close to No 10 has dubbed it ‘irrational’ and ‘arbitrary’. So what’s going on behind
Is Matt Hancock being lined up as the ‘fall guy‘ over coronavirus? That’s the suggestion being made today following a number of stories questioning the Health Secretary’s performance. The most striking of which is the Telegraph splash on a Downing Street source describing Hancock’s 100,000 test target as ‘irrational’, ‘arbitrary’ and a mistaken response to media
‘Will the public be asked to wear face masks in public?’ This is a topic of debate today for the government’s SAGE committee of scientific advisers. Although the government dismissed the idea early on in the coronavirus pandemic, many other countries have since changed their own advice in support of them (read Dr John Lee’s analysis
14 min listen
Over 140,000 businesses have applied for the government’s employee furlough scheme on its first day of launch. This is a far higher uptake than those in government expected, Kate Andrews says on the podcast, so for how long can the government afford to keep it going?
15 min listen
Behind the scenes, the Cabinet is split on whether or not to lift the lockdown. The hawks such as Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, and Alok Sharma, are concerned about the economic and human costs of a sustained lockdown; the doves, such as Matt Hancock, worry that lifting the lockdown too soon risks a second wave.
14 min listen
The government revealed today that its testing capacity is at 38,000 a day. So why, then, are less than 16,000 tests being taken each day so far? Cindy, James, and Katy also discuss the new vaccines task force, the extension of the furlough scheme, and what the latest numbers out of China mean.
In the weeks leading up to Boris Johnson announcing lockdown measures, ministers and aides wondered how in the world you could enforce a lockdown like the one seen in authoritarian China in a liberal democracy such as the UK. But following Dominic Raab confirmation on Thursday that there will be another three weeks of lockdown, public
15 min listen
As expected, Dominic Raab announced an extension to the lockdown today, with no clear end date set. But he did offer insight into the criteria that the government is using to judge when that time might come. Katy Balls writes about it here and she discusses them on the latest episode with James and Cindy. The
44 min listen
Historian Niall Ferguson writes in this week’s cover piece that, even before coronavirus, the Cold War between America and China was already getting underway. With the current pandemic, animosity between the two superpowers has only increased. So when it comes to the geopolitics of the ‘corona wars’, who will win? Niall tells Cindy on the podcast
Dominic Raab has this evening confirmed that there will a lockdown extension of three weeks. The First Secretary of State said that while there had been encouraging signs that the rate of infection had significantly reduced, it was still too early to break away from any lockdown measures. He said the most dangerous thing for both
13 min listen
Keir Starmer has written to the government to demand that they publish detailed criteria on what would be enough to lift this lockdown. It’s his first offensive as the leader of the Opposition in the current crisis, but it’s not a move that has been welcomed by all on the left. So how shrewd is his
After promising to work constructively with the government to tackle coronavirus, Keir Starmer has this morning gone on the offensive. The Labour leader has written to the de facto deputy Dominic Raab calling on him to publish the outline of the government’s exit strategy. Ministers have repeatedly refused to discuss any easing of the lockdown publicly on
Following Tuesday’s bleak headlines over the effect the coronavirus lockdown could have on the economy, the Chancellor attempted to strike an optimistic note in the daily government press conference. With the OBR projection suggesting three months of lockdown followed by a partial easing could lead to the UK economy shrinking by 35 per cent, Sunak said that while
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Today the Office for Budget Responsibility has released a new analysis of the impact of coronavirus on the British economy. Kate Andrews writes about exactly what it says here, and joins the podcast with Katy Balls and Cindy Yu to discuss its implications.
13 min listen
In today’s press conference, Patrick Vallance said that the daily death toll is likely to be even higher this week, before it starts to go down. With the government facing increasing criticism and pressure over PPE and testing, will this be the toughest week yet?
18 min listen
On the Andrew Marr Show today, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a senior scientific advisor on the government’s scientific advisory group Sage, warned that the UK is on track to become one of the worst hit countries in Europe by coronavirus. So has the British government been too slow in its response?
