Politics

A few months ago, Boris Johnson fought a general election saying that there was no ‘magic money tree’ and accusing Jeremy Corbyn of naively believing otherwise. This morning, something strange sprouted from the economic undergrowth, looking very much like a magic money tree. Britain sold its first long term bonds with negative yields: ie, sold at an average of -0.003 per cent. This dip below zero means investors are knowingly making a loss – paying more overall for the bonds than what their investment will return.  The yield may be only a fraction below zero, but its cross into negative territory marks a difficult moment for the prevailing economic narrative:

This Wednesday, MPs will head home from the virtual parliament and go into recess. When they come back to work, the government is pushing for a return to normal. Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg wants MPs to return to parliament rather than work from home. There are no current plans to renew measures that had allowed MPs to work from home such as the ability to question ministers via the video app Zoom or vote online. This decision has not been universally well-received. Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has expressed safety concerns while Labour MPs have warned against the move. Given that Hoyle says the Chamber cannot take more than 50 MPs at any one

Michael Gove – We’re confident children and teachers will be safe Michael Gove was in charge of the government’s media rounds this morning. Andrew Marr was keen to ask him about the provisions being made for children returning to school. The government wants primary school children in reception, Years 1 and 6 to return to the classroom from 1st June. The Cabinet Office Minister told Marr that he had been reassured that it would be safe to do so without significant fear of the coronavirus causing significant new outbreaks: MG: I talked to the [government’s] chief scientific advisor yesterday… and we’re confident that children and teachers will be safe… The

The R-number has been declared the most important metric in monitoring Covid in Britain. For young children to return to school in June, or for pubs to open in July, it is always linked to the rate of Covid transmissions – the R-number – staying below one. Above one is the danger zone: it means each infected person is infecting, on average, more than one other. So plans to liberalise are put on hold and we possibly enter a more severe lockdown once again. When explaining his strategy last weekend, the Prime Minister even showed a picture of an R-Number speedometer. But it gave no reading. We’re instead told a range: is that it