Is an immunity test around the corner?
14 min listen
Politics
Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
Wednesday
How reliable are the coronavirus figures?
The statistics – all of them – have become utterly meaningless, regardless of how dramatically they are presented in our newspapers. We have not been testing with anything like enough numbers to give a true picture of the spread. And so the death rate – not the actual numbers – is also meaningless and ranges from a ludicrous rate to next to nothing. Complicating the picture still further is the growing suspicion that many of us have already had the virus, in late January, and perhaps did not realise it. These known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, suggest to me that this crisis will diminish rather quicker than many are suggesting.
Jeremy Corbyn has one last go at overthrowing capitalism
Double bubble at PMQs. With MPs leaving Westminster a week early, the Speaker ruled that two sessions of PMQs should rub up against each other. It was a full one-hour grilling. Boris adopted his ‘Britain in wartime’ pose. He heaped every questioner with praise and gave his answers with theatrical solemnity. Asked about testing-rates, he offered good news on their increasing frequency. ‘From 5,000 to 10,000 to 25,000.’ Trouble is, he said that last week. Jeremy Corbyn complained that the healthcare supply association is so short of bio-hazard suits that it has to beg for donations on Twitter. Luckily Boris had just come from a meeting with someone in a
Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s unlikely tribute to Jeremy Corbyn
As the House of Commons rises for a premature Easter recess, coronavirus continues to dominate all parliamentary business. However, today also marks Jeremy Corbyn’s final day in parliament as Labour leader – he put in his last Prime Minister’s Questions opposition performance this lunchtime. While many in Corbyn’s own party won’t be sad to see him go, Jacob Rees-Mogg appears to take a different view. The Leader of the House gave an unlikely tribute to the departing Labour leader: ‘I perhaps have a particular admiration for him which may surprise him. When I was first elected to parliament, there was a distinguished figure who sat at the far end of the opposition benches –
Self-employed workers richly deserve a coronavirus bail-out
It will be impossible to calculate. There will be widespread fraud. And there is no mechanism for sending out the money. As the Chancellor Rishi Sunak scratches around for ways to bail out the UK’s five million self-employed in the same way he has done for employees he faces plenty of obstacles. No doubt his Treasury officials have come up with a list of reasons why any scheme he comes up with won’t work in practise, will prove too expensive, will break the IT system, or can’t be implemented until 2029 at the earliest. But hold on. That’s crazy. In fact, the self-employed deserve their bail-out more than anyone. Sure, it
Why MPs are talking about a government of national unity again
The idea of a government of national unity appeared to have died when Boris Johnson won a decisive majority of 80 in the December snap election. Prior to that, it was a topic that frequently dominated Theresa May’s premiership and the beginning of Johnson’s. Proponents argued that a government formed of senior figures from each party (sometimes sharing similar views) would be best placed to solve the Brexit conundrum. With Brexit wars now a distant memory thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the idea has re-entered public debate over the government’s handling of the virus outbreak. A number of commentators have called in recent days for Johnson to be replaced by a team
Tuesday
Who’s to blame for the tube overcrowding?
12 min listen
Coronavirus looks set to hike UK unemployment rates – and skyrocket them in the eurozone
What does the coronavirus crisis mean for unemployment in the UK and Europe? A study out today from Capital Economics offers a possible answer and if it’s bad news for Britain, its worse for those in the eurozone. Here in Britain, the huge economic consequences spurred on by the virus – which will see growth plunge in the second quarter of 2020 – are estimated to cause a sharp, albeit short, spike in unemployment: an estimated rise from 3.9 per cent to six per cent; roughly 700,000 job losses: Capital Economics considers several factors when calculating these new unemployment projections, including a lower number of total hours worked in the economy during the
The government blames Sadiq Khan for tube overcrowding
With social distancing now the order of the day, Matt Hancock used today’s government press conference to update the nation on NHS preparedness – and call for the country to come together to tackle the pandemic. The latest government figures put the number of coronavirus fatalities at 422 and this is expected to rise. In order to prepare the NHS for an increase in cases, the Health Secretary announced that a new temporary hospital is to open in London’s ExCel Centre – and said that so far 11,788 retired NHS staff had responded to the government’s call for volunteers to return to work. Hancock said the government is now hoping to
The lethal ambiguities in the ‘stay at home’ coronavirus advice
There are still potentially lethal ambiguities in the government’s coronavirus advice about who should go to work; such is the judgement of leading employers, to whom I’ve spoken. The fundamental question is whether businesses that are not doing work considered of national importance, but which involve employees working cheek by jowl in sweaty conditions, should cease operating. The head of one of the UK’s largest companies is absolutely clear to me that the government has given a signal that such operations should send staff home and switch off the machines. But a distraught mother of an employee of a Midlands steelworks forwarded me a message from the firm boss saying
What happens if the economy truly tanks?
The government has taken steps to shore up most businesses. But it is becoming clear that the current plans may not be ambitious enough. Governments across the globe may need to be more radical if the commercial world is going to be able to handle the coronavirus crisis, while also ensuring tolerable income conditions for all workers, employees and the self-employed. If things get much worse, they may have to break out of their orthodoxies and start engaging with new, contrarian possibilities, such as more extensive public ownership and considerably higher taxes. These ideas will not, at first sight, be popular but maybe now is the time to debate and discuss these
Labour’s coronavirus conundrum
Labour chairman Ian Lavery has expressed hope that the coronavirus crisis could provide his party with a ‘great opportunity’. Lavery’s comments have been attacked for being in desperately poor taste. For on one reading, here was a leading Labour figure sounding upbeat over how his party could take political advantage of a global pandemic. The reality is however slightly different. Lavery undoubtedly expressed himself in a crass way but he was actually hoping the crisis would see Labour members help bring people together and organise community activities to alleviate the crisis. But Lavery’s comments – and the reaction to them – establish, as if we did not know, that politics
Monday
It’s unlikely that this lockdown will be lifted any time soon
It is hard to think of a prime minister doing something that so goes against their political instincts as Boris Johnson declaring that people can only leave their homes for a list of state-approved activities. One of the constants of his political and journalistic career has been his opposition to the state infringing on people’s liberties. But the coronavirus and the public health challenges posed by a pandemic have forced him to shift. The fact that the authorities will be able to enforce these new rules is a big shift from Sunday’s press conference when Boris Johnson seemed taken aback by the idea that the police could be asked to
Britain enters lockdown
12 min listen
Boris had little choice but to impose a coronavirus crackdown
Very few of us alive thought we would ever hear a prime minister of the United Kingdom, with its centuries old liberties, order us to stay in our homes, and only venture out, and never in groups, to acquire what we need to stay alive or for basic essential exercise – on pain if we disobey of being arrested and fined by the police. His reason, that won’t have escaped you (I hope), is rarely in our history have we faced such a threat to the lives of those we hold most precious as that posed by Covid19. And never in its 72-year existence has the NHS teetered so precariously close
Britain enters coronavirus lockdown
In the past few minutes, Boris Johnson has announced that the UK is going into lockdown from this evening. In a statement in Downing Street (which you can read in full here), he announced that people will not be allowed to leave their homes unless they are doing so for the following: – shopping for basic necessities – one form of exercise a day such as a run, walk or cycle and either alone or with other members of the same household – medical needs or caring for a vulnerable person – travelling to or from work but only when absolutely necessary. The police will be given the power to
Boris Johnson: why you must stay at home
Good Evening, The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades – and this country is not alone. All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer. And so tonight I want to update you on the latest steps we are taking to fight the disease and what you can do to help. And I want to begin by reminding you why the UK has been taking the approach that we have. Without a huge national effort to halt the growth of this virus, there will come a moment when no health service in the world could possibly cope; because there won’t
Alex Salmond will have his revenge
Alex Salmond has been cleared of sexual assault following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh. The jury returned this afternoon and found the former First Minister not guilty of 12 charges and resorted to Scotland’s special not proven verdict on a 13th allegation. Salmond’s twin defences were that the claims against him were ‘exaggerations’ (he wasn’t perfect but he had never done anything criminal) or ‘deliberate fabrications for a political purpose’ (he was the victim of a conspiracy). In private, much of the Scottish political and media class already had him hanged, drawn and quartered and so this verdict is being met with a mixture of shock, horror
Boris should be praised for his reluctance to send in the police
There was an extraordinary moment in the government’s Covid-19 news briefing yesterday. Boris Johnson was asked: ‘Prime Minister, people aren’t acting responsibly, so when are you going to bring in the police?’ Boris was aghast. ‘Bring in the police?!’, he said, looking, as one would hope he would, horrified by the prospect of the UK becoming a police state that arrests people for going outside and strolling in parks. Guess which side in this telling Q&A got the most flak? Yep, not the journalist wondering out loud when cops are going to step in, but the PM who has an instinctive loathing of such an authoritarian prospect. This is the
My nightmare
Alex Salmond has been cleared of sexually assaulting nine women. The former Scottish first minister released this statement outside court: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, just over a year ago, when we finished the Civil Action and Judicial Review, I said I had great faith in the court system in Scotland. That faith has been much reinforced today. So I’d like to start by explaining that faith and thanking the jury for their decision. I’d also like to thank the court service who have been courteous beyond limit over the last two weeks and for the police officers who’ve manned this trial under these extraordinary circumstances. Obviously, above all, I’d like to