Ross Clark

Ross Clark

Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better

Boris could pay a heavy price for his tax hikes

Given the enthusiasm for tax cuts usually shown by Conservative MPs it is remarkable how few of them have, in public, raised objections to the government’s loose fiscal policy. True, the Prime Minister’s announcement of a hike in National Insurance ostensibly to pay for social care, elicited squeals from the back benches, yet last month’s

The Omicron variant: what we know so far

Will the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, be the black swan that pulls the world back — just when the pandemic seemed to be fading? Global markets certainly seem to think so, with sharp falls on Asian and European trading this morning. But what do we know about the new variant? The

Ross Clark

The trouble with a green stamp duty tax

Should homebuyers have to pay a higher rate of stamp duty if the property they are buying has a low energy rating? After all, motorists already pay a higher rate of road tax if they are buying a new car with high fuel consumption. The stamp duty idea has been advanced by a trade body

The Covid revolts: Europe’s new wave of unrest

Given the ability of Covid-19 to make fools out of everyone, it is not entirely fair to single out an opinion piece penned by Christina Pagel and Martin McKee, members of the self-appointed ‘Independent Sage’ committee on 7 October. But it sums up an attitude which was common just seven weeks ago. ‘England, not for

Europe gripped by a fifth wave

How quickly things change. Just a month ago many EU countries were being praised for keeping some Covid restrictions in place, in many cases operating vaccine passport systems. By contrast, Britain was being attacked for removing most Covid restrictions in July. The UK suffering elevated infection rates ever since, leading to predictions that we could be

Austria will regret mandatory vaccinations

So, Austria’s experiment to persuade more people to get vaccinated by placing the unvaccinated in lockdown didn’t last long. A week, to be precise. From Monday, the entire country will be placed under stay at home orders and other restrictions — this, after it seemed that the era of lockdowns was over. But perhaps more

Do masks really slash the risk of catching Covid?

Which public health interventions help to cut the spread of Covid-19 — and which do not? Except for vaccinations, where we have extensive trial data, this is a question on which the government has had little information to help it. But this morning’s headlines appear to offer an answer: wearing masks may help slash Covid

Insulate Britain are not martyrs

Throughout the Insulate Britain protests there was a suspicion that the group was deliberately trying to get its members behind bars during the COP26 conference — a suspicion that was enhanced when a spokesperson for the group told the Guardian on 24 October:  It’s fair to say that there is absolute disbelief and surprise that the

Why wasn’t the furlough scheme wound up sooner?

October’s employment figures, according to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak are ‘testament to the success of the furlough scheme’. The other way of looking at the figures, released this morning, is that they show why the furlough scheme should have been wound up months ago, rather than at the end of September. The number of people

Should Covid booster jabs be rolled out to the over-40s?

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended that Covid booster jabs be offered to people in their forties, after they became available to the over-fifties earlier this year. But, as recently as August, the World Health Organisation opposed booster jabs. It said in a statement:  ‘In the context of ongoing global vaccine supply constraints,

Why the UK can’t rely on renewables…yet

Like a football tournament with an official beer, COP26 had an official energy provider: the Griffin wind farm in Perthshire, operated by SSE. Trouble is that for much of the conference it was not paid to generate electricity. Instead, it received £500,000 in ‘constraint payments’, which are given to owners of wind farms when they

Does Joe Biden understand inflation?

I have a horrible feeling that the Biden presidency may come to be defined by a single quote which will echo down the ages, featuring not just in economics textbooks but becoming a byword for hubris of all kinds. Speaking of his $1.75 trillion ‘Build Back Better’ plan, the President declared last week: ‘Seventeen Nobel

The trouble with Austria’s vaccine passport plan

Are vaccine passports being used in other countries in an attempt to cut Covid infections – or to try and boost vaccine take up by curtailing the social lives of those who refuse? The latest change in policy in Austria would appear to confirm that for them, it’s the latter. From today, access to restaurants,

Ross Clark

Could EVs destroy the value of terraced homes?

With their private jets and gas-guzzling mansions, delegates at Cop26 have been widely criticised for an elitist attitude towards the environment. Nothing better demonstrates the gulf between policymakers and ordinary people than over the charging points for electric cars. It is one thing to install a home charging point for your car if you own

Did Covid first emerge at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

The net around the Wuhan Institute of Virology continues to tighten. A letter from Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, has shed more light on the grant which the institute made to the EcoHealth Alliance for work at the Wuhan Institute.  One of the experiments, it

The wishful thinking of COP26

History records that George II was the last British king to lead his troops on the battlefield, at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. But maybe it is only a matter of time… Addressing the COP26 summit in Glasgow Prince Charles called for a ‘vast military-style campaign’ against climate change. We must put ourselves on

Why are Covid cases going down?

Imagine if the government had taken notice of the assorted scientists who, a couple of weeks ago, were imploring them to immediately enact ‘Plan B’ and reintroduce measures such as compulsory mask-wearing, working from home and limits on gatherings. The current dip in new Covid cases would be heralded as a sign of the success

Ross Clark

What’s really behind the net-zero zealotry of big businesses?

Boris Johnson’s biggest challenge at COP26 doesn’t lie in avoiding a finger-wagging from Greta Thunberg, who won’t be going. Neither will it be in preventing the party being spoiled by Insulate Britain holding up the limousines of the great and good. Nor will Johnson have to struggle too hard to persuade his fellow world leaders

Who should pay for nuclear?

How much longer is the government going to suppress the cost to households of achieving net zero carbon emissions, or try to imply, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng recently seemed to imply on the Today programme, that it won’t cost us at all?  Even as he spoke Kwarteng was working on a new model for the