Politics

The government may have resigned itself to keeping schools closed for the majority of pupils until September but there’s a simple solution to the classroom capacity problem sitting at the heart of every town and village in Britain. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has been busy speaking out about everything from future government austerity to historic racism in the Church of England in recent weeks, while a dozen of his bishops publicly denounced Boris Johnson’s decision to keep Dominic Cummings in post. All the while, the Church of England is residing over a huge pile of sizeable real estate that could enable schools to scale up in the same

Locking down Britain sooner would have saved thousands of lives, according to Neil Ferguson. But while Ferguson’s claims have been rightly contested – and the merits of shutting down Britain, particularly in view of today’s woeful GDP figures – remain debatable, one thing is very clear: lockdown is having a dreadful effect on the lives of many. A survey from Italy, which went into lockdown a few weeks before Britain, shows why. 20,000 people were quizzed by researchers at the Mario Negri Institute in Milan on the psychological consequences of forcing people to quarantine themselves. And the findings – almost certainly replicable in Britain – make for grim reading. Over

Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was explicit at Wednesday’s press conference about how concerned he was about a second Covid-19 spike in the winter months. This would coincide with the flu season, placing maximum pressure on the NHS. One consequence of this is that if something is not open by the beginning of October, it isn’t going to be open until the end of February next year. As one of those at the heart of coronavirus policy-making warns: ‘If Sage are this cautious going into summer, then they are not going to want to be playing fast and loose with the R number heading into winter.’ This shows why

One of the greatest prizes from Brexit is the opportunity to make the Global Britain aspiration a reality. Included is a leadership role at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) where the UK, the fifth biggest economy in the world, could help drive much-needed progress to facilitate global trade. Leadership, however, requires respect to back it up. In trade terms, that means walking the talk of trade liberalisation at home. Once free of the EU, the UK knows that its thriving farming sector will therefore require access to global markets. But the trade agreements to deliver that access must be consistent with WTO rules. Recent talk of the UK adopting a

Goldman Sachs is still operating out of London. Airbus is still making wings in Broughton, even if the order book is not looking so healthy right now. Nissan has backed its Sunderland factory. Still, at least those who are clinging to the notion that leaving the European Union would lead to a mass exodus of multinational corporations always had one company they could rely on: Unilever. The Anglo-Dutch conglomerate would surely always champion the European Union cause. It had already tried once to flee the country as it plunges over the Brexit abyss and would no doubt try again as the transition period expired. Except, er, hold on. Not any