Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

OBR analysis reveals staggering impact of Covid-19 on UK economy

Just days after the Office for Budget Responsibility announced its economic forecasts in March, the reality of Covid-19’s impact on the UK economy sunk in, and its projection was rendered completely obsolete. A month later, with a clearer picture of the toll the virus and lockdown have taken, the OBR today released its new coronavirus analysis, showing a staggering 35 per fall in real GDP in the second quarter, and an unemployment spike of up to 10 per cent – that is, 2 million additional people out of work. A long way off its Budget 2020 forecast for the year:  As the graph above shows, the OBR’s scenario predicts a ‘V-shaped’ recovery –

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

What pandemic? Labour finds a way to keep talking about itself

There’s nothing like a national crisis to get your priorities in order. With the coronavirus death toll in the UK passing 10,000 this weekend, one government adviser has said Britain could be on course to be the worst performing country in Europe when it comes to overall fatalities. So, surely this is the issue on which the Labour party has spent the bank holiday Monday campaigning? Actually, no. Instead, Labour bods – and new Labour leader Keir Starmer –  have busied themselves with their favourite topic of old: internal party politics. A seemingly leaked internal report alleges that anti-Jeremy Corbyn sentiment within Labour thwarted the party’s effort to tackle anti-Semitism. The report says that ‘abnormal

Sunday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is the UK on track to be Europe’s worst hit country?

18 min listen

On the Andrew Marr Show today, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a senior scientific advisor on the government’s scientific advisory group Sage, warned that the UK is on track to become one of the worst hit countries in Europe by coronavirus. So has the British government been too slow in its response? 

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The contradiction at the heart of ministers’ coronavirus response

The stories I hear from what healthcare workers call ‘the frontline’ – code for those working directly with Covid-19 patients – are traumatising. ‘I am seeing scores of death,’ says one senior doctor. ‘It’s hideous… I’m palliating [giving temporary relief to] people in their 70s to 90s on the wards who were never remotely suitable for intensive care and who are dying horribly quickly, and nastily too, if they don’t get the proper care. ‘The ward staff don’t have the experience and the poor patients don’t have a loved one by their side acting as their advocate’. This doctor gave me this insight because I could not work out where precisely

John Lee John Lee

Where is the vigorous debate about our response to Covid?

After a career as a scientist and clinical academic, I have been struck by how often they (we!) have very complicated and exceedingly well-reasoned ways of getting things quite wrong. That’s why I have always thought it best for the recommendations of experts to have ‘advisory’ status only. Experts’ roles are to examine the minutiae of a small subject area – with a view to gaining or advancing understanding. It is the job of our politicians and civil servants to develop appropriate policies.  Experts can be guilty of being monomaniacs, interested only in the thing they are studying. That’s understandable, of course, because many of these things are hard to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris Johnson leaves hospital – and heads to Chequers to recover

Boris Johnson has been discharged from hospital. After being moved out of intensive care on Thursday, the Prime Minister is now well enough to leave hospital to begin his recovery at Chequers. A No. 10 spokesman said: The PM has been discharged from hospital to continue his recovery, at Chequers. On the advice of his medical team, the PM will not be immediately returning to work. He wishes to thank everybody at St Thomas’ for the brilliant care he has received. All of his thoughts are with those affected by this illness. On the release of the news, Johnson’s fiance Carrie Symonds took to social media to thank NHS staff. She said ‘there

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Easter Sunday puts the trade-offs of the lockdown into perspective

Perhaps today, more so than any day before it, we understand the trade-offs of this lockdown. An Easter Sunday that would normally be spent with loved ones will be spent by many people alone. Churches are a no-go zone. Friends who live down the street feel miles away. Family traditions and big meals are, at best, shared together on video apps – for others, they’re on hold until next year. These are the harsh realities of the lockdown, designed to slow the spread of a deadly pandemic. But the vast majority of us understand why it’s so important to stay inside right now – and are willing to keep doing

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: UK likely to be worst hit in Europe, says science adviser

Politicians might usually expect a weekend off from interview duties over the Easter weekend, but tradition is hardly the order of the day at present. The Business Secretary Alok Sharma joined Sophy Ridge to discuss the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis at a sombre time, with the total number of fatalities soon expected to pass 10,000. Today, the Royal College of Nursing has issued guidance advising that nurses should refuse to treat patients with coronavirus if they do not have sufficient personal protective equipment available to them. Sharma defended the government’s record on PPE: Sharma said:  No medical professional should be placed in a position where they have to

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Over-zealous police put the entire lockdown strategy at risk

Coronavirus is bringing out the best in some public services and the worst in others. I’m still being a snob about clapping for the NHS — it’s not British and you can’t make me think it is — but there’s no doubt health service staff have put in an absolute shift and their unhesitating dart in the direction of danger has been admirable. The police, though, are a more complicated story. The vast majority are doing a fine job under tense circumstances. They are an unarmed constabulary enforcing an open-ended lockdown in the middle of a pandemic. Still, there have been a number of incidents now that risk chipping away

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Priti Patel’s domestic abuse campaign is better than nothing, but there’s a lot missing

In the past few minutes, Priti Patel has launched a public awareness campaign called #YouAreNotAlone on domestic abuse in the lockdown, along with an extra £2 million for domestic abuse helplines and online support. Charities helping domestic abuse victims say the number of calls to their hotlines has risen by around 25 per cent – 120 per cent in 24 hours in the case of the National Domestic Abuse Hotline – and their website traffic has soared even more since the public was told to stay at home. Police forces are also reporting an increase in calls about domestic violence. The Home Secretary, who has been rather low profile so far

Toby Young Toby Young

Audio Reads: Toby Young, Douglas Murray, and Melissa Kite

19 min listen

The Spectator is meant for sharing. But in the age of coronavirus, that might not be possible. This new podcast will feature a few of our columnists reading out their articles from the issue each week, so that you don’t miss out. It’s a new format, so tell us what you think at podcast@spectator.co.uk. Toby Young on why Britain needs Boris; Douglas Murray on what he finds heartening about the national response to coronavirus; and Melissa Kite’s Real Life column.

Friday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

The human cost of the coronavirus lockdown

16 min listen

The government is trying to find out the human cost of the coronavirus lockdown, with one model seen by ministers estimating 150,000 ‘avoidable deaths’. So could the cure to the pandemic be worse than the disease itself?

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Matt Hancock’s PPE problem

After weeks of criticism that personal protection equipment isn’t reaching front line health and care workers, Matt Hancock today launched a ‘PPE plan’ to ensure that gloves, face masks and so on reach hospitals and care homes as quickly as possible. But alongside it, he also issued a curious warning: don’t use equipment you don’t need. Hosting the Downing Street coronavirus briefing this evening, the Health Secretary said:  ‘There’s enough PPE to go around, but only if it’s used in line with our guidance. We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource that it is. That means only using it when there’s a clinical need, and not using

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Union boss confronted over sick Boris gag

Most people are delighted at the news that Boris Johnson’s condition has improved enough for him to come out of intensive care. But not union boss Steve Hedley. Hedley, the assistant general secretary of the RMT Union, wrote on Facebook: ‘I don’t want to offend you, but if Bojo pops his clogs, I’m throwing a party. I hope the whole cabinet and higher echelons of the Tory party have been touching various bits of him.’ Unfortunately for Hedley, his comments were picked up by LBC’s Maajid Nawaz, who confronted him live on air.  Hedley promptly hung up but the RMT has since announced that he has been suspended and is under formal

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No, MPs have not ‘given themselves’ £10,000 to work from home

In times of crisis, we all need someone to direct our anger at. There are some new candidates during this coronavirus epidemic: people who sit down in parks, people who panic bought toilet roll, and police officers threatening to check shopping baskets. But the old staples remain, and top of that list are the selfish, venal MPs who have just handed themselves £10,000 to work from home. This sort of story proves the point of all those who believe that MPs are out of touch and in it for themselves. It does such a good job of proving that point that it’s too good a story to check. Which is

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why isn’t No. 10 cracking down on overzealous police?

There are now daily examples of police forces either overstepping the regulations and guidance on social distancing to tell people off who are, for instance, in their own front gardens, or threatening to do so in the near future (see Northamptonshire police desperately trying to blame the media for writing up verbatim what its chief constable said about his force potentially checking shopping trolleys for non-essential items). While most police forces are doing a very difficult job in adjusting to new legislation while also putting their officers at risk of catching coronavirus in order to enforce it, these extreme examples do risk making it look as though some members of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Covid antibody test in German town shows 15 per cent infection rate

This morning we have some data giving a little more insight into the great unknown of the coronavirus pandemic: just how widely among the population has SARS-CoV-2 – the virus which causes Covid-19 – spread among the general population. A team at the University of Bonn has tested a randomised sample of 1,000 residents of the town of Gangelt in the north-west of the country, one of the epicentres of the outbreak in Germany. The study found that two per cent of the population currently had the virus and that 14 per cent were carrying antibodies suggesting that they had already been infected – whether or not they experienced any

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

There might be a way to avoid higher taxes after coronavirus. Here’s how

‘Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the state has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more it can only do so by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking someone else will pay – that “someone else” is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.’ These words, by Margaret Thatcher at the 1983 Conservative party conference, have often been used as a justification for rolling back the state so that private citizens can spend more of their own money. They seem to cast the state