Politics

‘The normal grease of politics is not there,’ bemoans one sociable cabinet minister. Certainly, the whispered conversations in corridors that make up so much of Westminster life are in abeyance during this period of social distancing. The fact that the backbenches and the cabinet have deep reservations about the government’s approach matters far less than it would in normal times. In the Zoom parliament, there is no such thing as the mood of the House. One Tory grandee pushing for a significant easing of the lockdown complains that the current arrangements ‘make it easier for No. 10 to ignore parliament and cabinet’. But contrary to appearances, politics has actually sped

I pulled a Canadian girl in a nightclub, back when I was in my very early twenties. She seemed very nice, if somewhat quiet. We went back to her place, where I spent an agreeable night. I sneaked out just after dawn while she was still sleeping and, upon looking under the bed for my socks (I always used to take them off back then), saw every book Ayn Rand had ever written neatly stacked up, in alphabetical order. Not just The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but Anthem and Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness and all the rest, the ones even Rand cultists have forgotten. I scarpered for the

The news that Iran interfered in the Scottish independence referendum is not terribly surprising. The Islamic Republic, along with Russia and China, was an early entrant into the fake news market, weaponising social media to spread misinformation. The object is to destabilise Western democracies domestically and thus weaken their ability to act on the international front. Iran’s Press TV and Russia’s RT function on the same basis — and both were noticeably enthusiastic about the possibility of Scotland voting Yes. A report commissioned by Facebook confirms Iran set up proxy accounts on social media to push nationalist messages to Scottish users in 2014, including cartoons depicting David Cameron as ‘the

Is the only route back to normality through a coronavirus vaccine? That’s what the Prime Minister will suggest today when he addresses the virtual Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Conference. With the conference aimed at driving forward a collective global effort for a vaccine, Boris Johnson will say only a mass-produced vaccine will truly defeat the virus:  ‘To win this battle, we must work together to build an impregnable shield around all our people and that can only be achieved by developing and mass producing a vaccine.’ A vaccine is viewed as the simplest route out of the pandemic. As a result, every country is interested in finding one – with

Could we see ‘immunity passports’ in Britain? Ministers are reportedly discussing them as a route out of lockdown. According to today’s Guardian, the UK tech firm Onfido is in discussion with ministers about creating a ‘digital certificate’ that would be issued to those who have already been infected with coronavirus – who are presumably more immune – so they could return to some resemblance of normal life, including heading back into work.  The technology needed to carry out such a scheme is reportedly in the ‘discovery stage’ and big questions linger as to whether British bureaucracy – which has struggled to source plastic PPE and has trailed other countries in Covid-testing for months