Politics

John Hume emerged in 1964 as a modernising voice within the stale and defeated world of Catholic Nationalist politics in Northern Ireland – a world in which the Unionists seemed to hold all the cards, including their relative prosperity on the island of Ireland. His first major intervention was to insist that the credo of Unionism could not be reduced to sectarian bigotry. It was, at that time, a liberating and progressive notion. When the archaic elements of Unionism were exposed by the civil rights movement in 1968-69, Hume emerged as an articulate spokesman for reform. In 1970 the reformist politics of the Civil Rights Movement were displaced by the

Rishi Sunak is contemplating a 2 per cent tax on goods sold online, possibly combined with a ‘green’ levy on delivery vans and a radical review of business rates, all designed to improve the survival chances of high-street retailers while harvesting more revenue from online sellers who have boomed during lockdown.  About time too — but the question is whether the likes of Amazon are so smart at tax minimisation that they will simply outflank new measures and pass costs to consumers. Attacking on several fronts at once might be the answer, and one idea — from the veteran think-tanker Lord Vinson — is that business rates on ‘big box’

It is remarkable to think that just 15 days ago, Boris Johnson was setting out a plan to end all social distancing by November. But, as I say in The Times this morning, the mood in government has become much more pessimistic in the last week or so. This winter the government could be dealing with flu, Covid, flooding, mass unemployment and all the issues arising from the end of the Brexit transition period. What most worries ministers, though, is what the uptick in Covid cases now means for the winter. August should be the most straightforward month for dealing with this virus. People are happy to socialise outdoors, the