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
What a strange non-event was the stockmarket reaction to the announcement of the latest national lockdown. Retailers, leisure companies, travel firms – all was calm. Marks and Spencer was down half a per cent on the morning, while Next was up five per cent on the back of good online results before Christmas. EasyJet was
Now that the Conservative party no longer has the issue of the EU over which to tear itself apart, is there something else that could replace it? Although perhaps not on the same scale as Europe, there is an issue which splits two of the party’s client groups: leasehold reform. On the one hand are
Was the latest release from the Office of National Statistics the shocking piece of evidence that led the Prime Minister to change his mind on children going back to school, and to introduce a full lockdown in England? The ONS does not usually publish its infection survey on Tuesdays – it usually comes out on
The government has failed to meet so many Covid-related targets so far that many will be extremely sceptical of the Prime Minister’s pledge on Monday evening to get the over-70s, front-line care workers and vulnerable people of all ages vaccinated by the middle of February. That is around 13 million first doses which will have to
Today begins the second phase of the Covid-19 vaccine programme, with the first members of the public receiving doses of the easier to use Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. But will the effort be thwarted by the emergence of two new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the Kentish strain and the South African strain? Yesterday, Sir John Bell,
Given that I know about as much about Lewis Hamilton’s tax affairs as I do about Formula One motor racing it would be unwise for me to be churlish about his knighthood, announced in the New Year Honours list. For all I know, he could be making generous voluntary donations to HMRC. A few weeks
How likely are you to be reinfected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus for a second time? It is a pertinent question because, at present, all government policy is predicated on the assumption that developing Covid-19 cannot be relied upon to offer you any immunity from reinfection whatsoever. Remember the Prime Minister telling us from his Number
What a joy it would be still to be in the EU. We could, for example, be part of the bloc’s Covid vaccine-buying programme. Or maybe not, to judge by the German experience. There has been a lot of comment in Britain regarding the relative slowness of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in approving the Pfizer
It is easy to be offended by the idea of the super-rich trying to buy their place in the queue for the Covid-19 vaccine ahead of your granny, and easy to feel a warm glow of satisfaction that they are being rebuffed – all supplies are being held on such a tight rein by the
The new variant of Sars-CoV-2 is, according to government experts, 71 per cent more transmissible than the previous dominant form, increasing the reproductive rate by between 0.39 and 0.93. But is it any more or less deadly than the older version? All Nervtag has revealed is that there have been 4 deaths recorded among 1,000
The Port of Dover has been closed, with freight as well as passengers unable to cross the Channel, due to the new strain of Covid concentrated in London and the South East. So how long before supermarket shelves are empty? A lot depends on the behaviour of British consumers. As has been proved on a
How certain should we be of the government’s claim that the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is 70 per cent more transmissible than the previous common strain falls apart? I ask not because I have any information that would contradict the Prime Minister, but because it has become a repetitive feature of this crisis: that the piece
Has the influence of anti-vaxxers been hugely overstated? That is one interpretation of the Office for National Statistics’ latest survey on social attitudes towards Covid-19 and the government’s efforts to tackle it. While fears abound that people might refuse the vaccine, with their minds turned by lies disseminated on social media about Bill Gates wanting to
The government is yet again under fire for its handling of Covid-19, as cases rise across parts of the country. But what about the global context? Is it still possible to argue that Britain has done especially badly in handling the pandemic? Possibly, but it is becoming increasingly hard to do so, as many countries
So, Christmas, it seems, will not be cancelled after all. The government has decided instead to tackle fears of a January spike in cases with tougher messaging, telling people that just because they will have the legal right to mix for five days next week doesn’t necessarily mean they ought to avail themselves of that
Just how widely is the economic pain from Covid-19 being felt? Still surprisingly little, according to the latest employment figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The absence of an explosion in unemployment goes some way to explaining why the lockdowns and restrictions have been accepted so meekly by the population at large. That
Should we worry about the emergence of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19? News of the new variant – which, it seems, might transmit more easily than previous versions – was the big surprise of Matt Hancock’s statement to the Commons this afternoon. The other big announcement – that London and
No, the Channel isn’t going to erupt into naval warfare, and neither is the Prime Minister engaging in ‘gunboat diplomacy’ by deploying Royal Naval vessels to keep French fishing boats out of UK waters in the event of Brexit transitional arrangements ending on 31 December with no trade deal. Yet that seems to be the
SAGE has already poured cold water on the NHS Test and Trace system in England, suggesting in September that it was making only a ‘marginal’ difference to Covid infection rates. Now the National Audit Office (NAO) has had its say, publishing its interim report into whether it has been value-for-money. It is not much more
While the Pfizer vaccine became the first to be used in a public vaccination programme on Tuesday, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine team became the first to publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal, the Lancet. As the press release announcing the results explained, the overall efficacy rate of the Oxford vaccine was measured at 70 per
